Sing, Sister Moon
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Science, philosophy, magic, and faith; moments in the life of Susan Pevensie and Francis Lupin, 1951-1955.


_This was written for "The Lion, The Wizards, and the Wardrobe Challenge." Or was supposed to be. For one thing, I'm not really sure if I was ever really eligible for it or not, and for another thing, this isn't finished. It wound up turning into one of the longest things I've ever written, not far from the top-and there's no end in sight._

_So, think of this as "Book One" or something (there are no chapters, but lots of little breaks). Maybe I'll edit it down the line. Maybe I'll skip several years and start book 2 later on, maybe I'll leave room to fill in Book 1.5. Or something. I don't know. But, anyway, enjoy.  
><em>

_Edit: October 2012: almost all of this is the original, except for a few paragraphs at the end. This wraps it up more nicely and so I'm tagging it as complete, but there will be a (much shorter) sequel soon!_

The first thing she notices about him is his accent.

Not his clothes, thrown together so oddly. He is a far cry from what she had once called fashionable, though he stands tall and gazes at her with absolutely confident eyes. Not his young face, one that might have made others assume he was a university student. She notices his accent, an English one. She who, too, is English.

"Hello?" he repeats. "I'm here to see Doctor Kuiper."

"He has an appointment in—" She glances at the clock. "Three minutes ago, and the one he's in now is running long."

"Yes," he smiles. "I'm Francis Lupin?"

"Oh," she says, narrowing her eyes. "I suppose he'll be out shortly. Sorry for the delay—new administration, plenty of bureaucracy to deal with."

He seems confused, but helps himself to the offered seat, waiting politely though glancing all around the room. Kuiper finishes four minutes later, and Francis strides in despite the professor's uncertain glance.

When he returns, Kuiper is not with him, but he seems pleased. "Can I—do you—can I schedule an appointment for next week?"

"Ah—certainly. Same time?"

"Three o'clock will be fine. Maybe he won't run long next week," he grins.

She nods, writing it down. "Have a nice evening."

"Thank you. You too."

Only when he leaves does she notice that he's wearing some sort of robe drawn around him. It's no concern of hers, though. She's still thinking about his voice. It's not even that it reminds her of home, but that it bears within it a hint of what "home" might mean.

* * *

><p>Throughout the week, his voice pops into her head. It's frustrating, knowing that she will see him again in a week. If their paths had simply crossed one day, strangers in a half-familiar land, she could have locked up her heart, confident that he'd shoot out to another infinity from her. But the uncertainty plagued her, the chance that she might get to meet him again tantalizing. It's certainly not love, not the love she expects that she'd have sought by now. It's closer to curiosity. She wants to ask where he has come from, what he is doing there.<p>

But she can't, not when he can turn around and ask her the same thing.

He returns, and she sends him in to see Kuiper, but they exit his office almost as soon as Francis enters it.

"My apologies," Kuiper says. "I'm afraid I was supposed to meet with the Dean this afternoon."

She looks up.

"Susan? If you have a moment? I just want to confirm it's the right time."

"This is the first I'd heard of it," she replies. "I scheduled Mr. Lupin last week."

"Quite." He takes off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "Do you have a moment? Perhaps there's been some mistake..."

"Of course."

But he is waving her away from the desk, out of the room. "You scheduled him for today? You might have told me."

"I...there's never been a problem before."

"He's a _child_! I can't tell where he comes from—Britain, clearly—but he can't be out of university. Had you no contact with him before last week?"

"He...sent a letter, I think." Lots of postage, perhaps it had been transatlantic. "I, I think he's writing a book. Dissertation, maybe."

"And he has no one better to interview? I'm not sure what he's playing at, but I have writing of my own to do. Please don't schedule any further appointments."

"O—of course," she says. This is what she wanted, some closure, yet her stomach lurches at the assent.

Kuiper looks back into the waiting room. "He's still there. Oh well. Perhaps I will drop in on the Dean..."

He strides off, perturbed, but Susan can tell it will pass. She returns to the room and sits behind her desk, trying not to look at Francis and willing him to go away.

"Don't worry about it."

No such luck. He's walked back up to her desk.

"About what?" she replies tensely.

"Overbooking me, it's no problem. Would tomorrow work better? I'm free most of the day."

"Um...no. Mr. Kuiper is finishing up a writing project and can't schedule very many appointments for the next few months."

"Oh." He is downcast, briefly, but quickly recovers. "Well, perhaps I should ask you. Are you familiar with his work on Europa?" He pauses. "Not _on_ Europa, of course, I mean..."

"I'm just the secretary," she laughs. It's a brutal sort of laugh, but it's not forced anymore. Her voice is dark, but at least she's finding things to laugh at. These days, she marks that as an achievement.

"Oh." He seems full of questions, and disappointed to pick out a prosaic one. "Do you know anyone else I could ask? I'm mostly interested in epistemology."

"I..." She wants to snap "what?" But she's a working woman now, no longer given to playing coy. "No. I'm sorry."

"That's no problem."

"You said a few months?"

She sighs, not wanting to have to speak to him and yet desperate to hear his voice. "I...without knowing what university you're affiliated with, it's difficult of him to know how to help you."

"That's fine. I haven't been here long, is it...common, in America, to have special secretaries? My own education has been rather...piecemeal."

"Yes," she says, slowly. "I'd assume most of us aren't specialists. I know a few students who help in the offices, though."

"All right," he says.

And, Susan thinks, that's the end of that.

* * *

><p>June 7, 1952<br>Pawnee, Oklahoma

Dear Doctor Kuiper,

I greatly enjoyed reading your new book, and can only wish I had been able to attend the symposium myself. I have never operated a spectroscope before although I hope to gain access to one in the near future.

Although your analysis of Mars seems quite robust I am not sure I agree with your conclusion that life will necessarily develop where it is possible. Are you familiar with the writings of Malcolm Gamp on this matter? I am not sure if there are very many accessible copies in the States, however I have colleagues in Scotland who would be pleased to provide you with a copy. Please let me know if you would like to read more about this or if you would like to discuss the spectroscope with me, I can be reached at this address care of Willow Yellow Horse for the next month or so.

Yours most truly,

Francis Lupin

21 June 1952

Pawnee, Oklahoma

Dear Sue,

I do hope this reaches you without incident and I apologize for possibly misremembering the half of your name I do know. I do not mean to be untoward but I am uncertain if Doctor Kuiper has received my letter of 7 June. Could you inquire as to whether that is the case? His book is quite engaging although I do think he could benefit from some further reading.

Yours,

Francis Lupin

* * *

><p>The quadrangles are quiet in July. She still works at the desk, but there is little to do, and she is able to read from time to time. Kuiper's book <em>is<em> quite engaging.

And the quietness immediately gives way to sound. "Hello?"

He looks unfamiliar for a moment, his clothing more normal by now, but the voice is unmistakable. "Mister Lupin! I'm sorry for not responding to your letter, I tried drafting it out a few times but couldn't quite find what I wanted to say."

"Quite understandable. It's always the date, isn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"The date. It's always a bit weird for me writing June 7 instead of 7 June..." At the curl of her eyebrow, he blushes. "I'm sorry. I thought perhaps you were British too. Silly of me to assume..." He trails off even as his face grows more colorful.

"I...am," she says coolly.

"Oh?" He shakes, a moment. "I'm sure you're tired of people mentioning it. But you _do_ have a lovely voice."

"Thank you," she says, and for an instant it's not just a tired formality. "Yours is...quite nice as well."

"Thank you!"

"So how are you liking the States?"

"Oh, they're quite nice. You have a nice campus, here, but your gargoyles are very quiet."

"Our what?"

"Your gargoyles. They're quite stern." From anyone else it would have sounded ridiculous, but she's only half-focusing on his words. "I see you've read Kuiper's book!"

"Still working on it. I don't understand how the spectroscopes work."

"I wish I did," he sighs. "No chance of getting access yet?"

"No. I think he's more used to collaborating with...older researchers."

"I _am_ older than when I came here last."

"It might help if you had some accreditation? Anything?"

"That's all right. I've done a lot of work and I think I'm going to change my focus. I don't suppose you would let me interview you?"

"Me? I know nothing about astronomy."

"Oh, you know something. I think I'll be working on cross-cultural ideas, you've lived on two continents. Or more?"

"Just the two."

"Well, two is fine. Did you do any of this sort of work back home?"

"No."

"Why'd you come here? Why the astronomy department?"

Susan decides to ignore the first question. "They were the ones who made me an offer. I applied lots of places."

"In the States? Or the UK as well?"

"Just the States."

"How'd you pick out ones to apply at?"

"I—my father lectured here ten years ago," she finds herself saying. "I came to visit. There were several schools, I thought they might remember..."

"Is your father an astronomer? Might you give me his address?"

"No," she glares over the desk. "He's dead."

* * *

><p>He stands quiet, feeling the touch of his fingernails against his palms. He has formed fists, angry at his hands for, despite all his power, seeming useless now.<p>

He will not apologize, not and sound trite. But how long to wait, how long to sound brave but not brusque?

He never finds out. "And Kuiper is in Wisconsin now."

"What?"

"He's not on campus anymore. So you couldn't have seen him anyway."

"You might have told me before."

Now her eyes light up in challenge. "I might have."

No sense, he tells himself, no sense in sticking around. "Thank you for your time. If you could just point me towards the train station? Things have been torn up since I was here..."

She seems like she's going to rock out of her seat, too close to laughing or crying. "The...it hasn't moved."

"Thank you," he repeats and is exiting when she says "Mr. Lupin?"

"Yes?"

"Your letter had...my name is Susan. Pevensie."

His mind is memorizing the name and his mouth snaps "What do you want?"

"Excuse me?"

"What do I—do you think I'm going to see you again? Why should I care what your name is?"

She winces, mouth still fallen open. "I thought...never mind."

And yet he remembers there was something she liked about his voice. "Please forgive me. I was insensitive, I didn't...I do not want to make you unhappy. I would try to apologize better but I need to learn to think before I speak."

"And I should know better," she says. "But I like hearing you speak, think or not."

"Now you're being silly?"

"Excuse me? We've, we've barely, spoken to each other. How should you know when I'm being silly?"

"This is..._I_ am getting ridiculous," he declared, crossing his arms for effect and knocking his briefcase into one as he did so. "Unless there are any more biographical details you need to inform me of, I won't stay around to cause any more trouble."

She bites her lip, a long dry piece of it crusting off. "I'm worried about the fact that you can't get to the train station. How did you get here?"

"Er," he says. "I...took a taxicab."

"You can call one to pick you back up. If you don't know your way back...they're trying to change things, around here, the neighborhood is..."

He stares at her, unsure what the neighborhood is and regretting not just ducking out.

"What are you looking at?" she challenges again. "I live nearby. I'm fine."

Very confused, he shook his head and turned away. "I can get back to the train. Thank you."

And once again he's almost gone when she blurts "One other thing?"

He doesn't even turn around, just stops walking.

A piece of paper grazes his sweater from behind several moments later. "If you still need people to interview for your book, write to me. This is my address. I think I'll be a bit more...clear-headed when I have pen and paper."

He turns to take it.

"I'll even put the date first, for you."

* * *

><p>1 August 1952<br>Paddington, London

Dear Susan,

I hope you are well. My transportation back home was quite satisfactory and now I am attempting to compile my notes into something marginally coherent. Have no fear, should you decide to reply I will gladly make room for your contributions.

I suppose this would be faster if nothing else face-to-face, but if you want time to sort out your thoughts that's fine as well. What I'm curious is what you learned about astronomy going up—who taught you, if it's not too painful a subject to write about—where you'd go looking at stars, that sort of thing. And how that compares to what you're doing now—do you ever talk with your co-workers about their studies?

Yours,

Francis Lupin

8 August 1952  
>Chicago, Illinois<p>

Dear Francis,

Thank you for your letter. Work is quiet as we wait for the new term to begin. Still a lot of construction going on; a friend of mine suggested we get a drink at an old bar before it closes but that proved to be quite the mistake.

I'm not sure what you want me to answer. I suppose my mother or my father taught me how to find the Big Dipper and use that to tell north. I never was much taken with the idea, at least as not as much as my little sister. It wasn't as if I was ever going to be lost in the wilderness, and even if I was, it's so often cloudy that it wouldn't do much good. Better to carry a compass.

The professors and students don't talk to me about their work, but I hear bits and pieces. I suppose one difference between what children learn and what the researchers do is that they have large instruments for finding things out. But I'm sure you know more about that than me. I've never used any of them but I saw some when I was in Wisconsin last winter.

Oh, and I'm not sure if this is what you were interested in, but I don't believe in horoscopes. (I think I'm a Sagittarius but I'm not sure.) The fault, dear Brutus...

Best,

Susan Pevensie

13 August 1952  
>Paddington, London<p>

Dear Susan,

I apologize if I am at fault somehow. Is Brutus an American nickname?

Aha, compasses? Do you carry any around with you, these days? Do you do much exploring in the wilderness? There don't seem to be many proper parks around your part of the city but then again I didn't move around there very much.

I don't suppose your sister would want to write to me about her experiences with the constellations? If she's unavailable, I understand.

Yours,

Francis Lupin

4 September 1952

Francis,

Don't play coy with me. Women can read Shakespeare, too.

My sister is not available.

Susan Pevensie

11 September 1952

Susan,

I hope I am strange enough of a person to convince you that my education was rather profoundly...irregular. I fancy myself decently well-read, but I know I have a lot to catch up on. Please believe me when I tell you I have read very little Shakespeare ("Macbeth" was quite entertaining) and did not recognize the source of your allusion.

My knowledge of American authors is even worse. Are there any I should definitely read? I don't know how long you've been in the States.

Yours,

Francis Lupin

19 September 1952

Francis,

You have some nerve. You are right in that I almost believe your education is strange enough that you might not have seen Shakespeare. Do not take this as a compliment.

As for American authors? Mark Twain, I suppose, or Herman Melville. You might also want to read the Constitution, too. (I haven't bothered.)

Sincerely,

Susan Pevensie

P.S. The quote is from "Julius Caesar." I have been in the States for three years.

* * *

><p>Three years. The days pass like gifts now, gifts from a dim aunt who wraps them with tape too tight so that you had to labor to find out what it is and usually nothing very pleasant, but opportunities nonetheless. She flirts, unintentionally, she jokes, unencumbered, and she laughs, unintentionally, caught up in the moments of being alive.<p>

A new year begins. A new year of school, at least—her life is not counted out by the calendar of her work, so much, but she is not too close to any one of the friends she's met. She is friends with the group as a whole, acting with a naturality she couldn't quite put her finger on if she wanted to.

Is this a sign, she asks herself, the fact that I can live so easily now the sign that I want to stay here?

Or, and though his letters are so childish she hears his voice in her mind like it is the first time, is this the sign that I am ready to go—

_back_. It will not be home, there is no place that can be that for her. She tries to think back, remember the somber woman who had left. Was she running away? Or biding her time?

"I'm thinking about moving back," she mentions one day. There are a few of them, secretaries and assistants and even a graduate student or two, over at Mary's apartment.

"Moving back?" Mary asks, the flitting host, ears in each direction.

Mary, she realizes, hasn't been here as long as she has. "H—home," she forces out, "Britain, that is."

"You're not from around here, Su?" Virginia teases. "Never'd have guessed."

"Well, it's your choice," Doro sighs. "Just listen to your heart."

"Yes, it's always a bit of a rush at the beginning of the year," says Virginia. "But you decide."

Everyone wishing her the best, wherever she goes. Everyone smiling. No one looking upset that she might soon be thousands of miles away, and as she speedwalks back to her place she finds herself wistful almost that their makeup is not thin enough to let her see through—or they have nothing to hide.

* * *

><p>4 January 1953<br>Clerkenwell, London

Dear Francis,

As the postmark should indicate, the move went well. Still feeling a bit jet-lagged, and I didn't even stay up late for New Year's Eve. Bad luck with getting settled in, if it's not the lights that break down it's the blinds, so I'm scrambling to get things in shape but at least I'll save money on postage. I start work at the university next week. English department now, not that it makes a difference.

Sincerely,

Susan Pevensie

8 January

Dear Susan,

Welcome (back)! I suppose it's a bit presumptive of me to speak for the city, particularly if you lived here before, but I hope you're well. I've been a bit ill recently but am hopefully better now, and am quite excited that my book will be released next week!

Do let me know if you'd ever like to get together, I should have time while I start research for my next project.

Best,

Francis Lupin

30 January

Dear Francis,

Far be it from me to suggest that astronomy is anything but fascinating, but is this much-vaunted book of yours ever to see the inside of a shop? I have looked through several but not seen it.

Best,

Susan Pevensie

3 February

Dear Susan,

You've caught me out! It's admittedly rather technical stuff, I suppose most shops won't go for it. Should have a place in some schools, though.

Why don't we get coffee some time? I'll bring you a copy—no charge.

Yours,

Francis Lupin

* * *

><p>The Underground is a guilty pleasure of his. Dizzying the first time, confounding the second, charming the third, and ever since then he's savored the trips. Oh, he's as disdainful as any pureblood at how slow the thing is, but there's something about how the "map" makes sense—it's not <em>really<em> telling him where anything is, but it twists space apart, showing him how the world connects...

Susan knows a quiet coffee shop; he doesn't like the smell of the building, but the coffee itself is strong.

"Here you go, then." He reaches into his backpack and pulls out several pieces of paper, stapled together.

Her lips purse at first sight, and she stiffens a moment, giving it a brief second chance. Her eyes are drawn, not to the writing itself, but, as she flips through—

"Quit patronizing me."

"What?"

"I don't care how technical you think the other parts are, give me the _entire book_. Not just pages ripped out. Do you think you're some kind of chivalrous, ripping up your own copy just to give me the parts I'm dumb enough to understand?"

He thinks again of what's in his briefcase. Part of him just wants to answer truthfully, get somewhere out of sight, and undo his mistakes. But she has no such opportunity.

Thinking slowly, he says, "I was actually hoping to kill two birds with one stone. An old friend of mine from school—bit stuffy of a man, but never mind—was hoping for some really esoteric references but didn't want to page through some of the interviews I did in Oklahoma. I thought I might take just one copy and split it among both of you. My mistake."

She glowers, but she does not leave.

"Listen, I don't...I'm not trying to speak with your boss anymore. Suppose we talk about something that isn't my work?"

"There's a novel concept."

"Novel," he echoes dimly. "I say, I did finally get around to reading "Tom Sawyer," it was quite good. Is the literature more for children, in the States?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh, well, I hadn't realized it was a children's book. Is that more common?"

"I don't know. I asked the same thing, my first few months there, but I didn't bother reading it once I saw it was for children."

"Ah. So what _do_ you read?"

She paused. "Some history books. I've been trying to finish Churchill, it's going a bit slow."

"Oh. I was rubbish at history, myself."

She laughs. "So what _did_ you study?"

"Bits of this and that, really. Astronomy, obviously, you know...some, how'd you call it, social studies? I'm rather interested in science but I could never string up a circuit or anything fancy."

"Where'd you go? And why didn't you go to university?"

Nothing was going to come easy. "A small school in Scotland—where my parents had gone, they wanted me to go there too. I got on well with the astronomy teacher, he knew I was a good writer and suggested that I start writing books. He's been helping me edit mine."

And to his (rapidly-stifled) shock, she believes him, and gives in turn the name of her school which he promptly forgets. They speak and speak, and remember little but the lilt of each other's voices. The coffee runs dry, the customers all around them speak as excitedly as they do and with the same strong voices, yet somehow he only has ears for her.

* * *

><p>She's never seen his flat; he always comes out her way. "I know I ought to be used to it by now," he says with a humility that almost isn't too practiced, "but I can't help it, I still feel like a tourist on the Underground. Besides, my place is..." and the twitches are genuine "an absolute pit."<p>

It's blustery, this May, but not so much they can't meet outside. "Don't suppose you ever met a Urey, down on campus?"

"Yuri? No."

"Pity. Just published a brilliant essay but I think he ought to read some Gamp."

She rolls her eyes.

"I'm going back to Chicago for a week next summer. Perhaps I'll hunt him down."

"What for?"

"Oh, research. I'm starting another book about...science, I suppose, how one does it. I want to poke around the old atom pile, see what that looks like."

She has learned never to overestimate his common sense. "You can't get _in_."

"Of...of course. I'll just poke around. Under the old football pitch, isn't it?"

"I think so. Never looked around—I'm not a sport fan and it's all closed off."

"That's fair. I'm a Ballycastle man, myself."

"_Ballycastle_? What league are _they_ in?"

He squirms. "They're...it's not a very...I mean to say...no, it's not one of the more popular leagues but...they have some _brilliant_ players. Trust me."

"At least you could root for a good team that might actually win."

"They..." But this fight he will not pick. "All right, then, what do _you_ like?"

"Eh?"

"Not sport, not your job as far as I can tell. Do you go to films? Listen to music? Anything?"

"I think I told you I read books."

"Oh. Yes." He looks disappointed, and at her gaze, continues. "I'm sorry. I'm a bit, what's the word? Ashamed? Jealous of myself on your behalf, for having such an interesting career."

She laughs—passing are the days when she thought of him as vainly striving for chivalry. He's just too dumb. "I can be as jealous as I want on my own. Today, I don't want to."

Nor the next day. Nor the day after that. Nor the ensuing week, not the night she tries baking a pizza and every little switch she made from the recipe works. (Of course, she reasons, there is no way of knowing what _hasn't_ worked—she might just be lucky, might have been even luckier, but there is no need to overthink things.) She never considers that _that_ might be a something, a something worth liking.

* * *

><p>When Brenda, a plump early riser, coos that Susan absolutely must come over and watch her television, she immediately realizes that Francis has probably never seen one and would not know how to operate it if he tried. (Neither would she, but at least she would know how to read the buttons and use them.) Of course, says Brenda, of course she can bring a friend, Brenda's inviting everyone she knows now that Sam's been so dear and made the blasted thing operate.<p>

Sam seems to take a dim view of the entire proceedings, standing in the corner and glowering at the "froo-froo and frills," while Brenda squeals with excitement at each flash of the camera. Francis is more interested in how the television operates than what it's showing, and manages to disrupt the proceedings early on by unplugging the thing, but Sam fixes it and all the guests are too excited to get angry at him.

"I'm no great shakes at politics," Francis concedes, "but didn't the king die _last_ year?"

"He was in the States," Susan rushes to fill in, "researching, he's been a bit out of it."

"They split it apart," said Brenda, "A year to mourn, only then do we crown the new queen."

_A year_. Memory darts within her. _A crowning. Time set apart from time, a golden morning. There is ceremony to be followed, before the day of joy, this is how—_

"What're you at, Su?" asks Francis.

"Nothing, just thinking back to childhood. It's funny, I think I sort of remember when George was crowned. How old were we?"

"I was...ten," says Brenda. "Didn't have any of these television sets, of course."

"My mind plays tricks on me," she sighs. "Thought I remember what it looked like. Never mind the past, though, this is beautiful."

* * *

><p>Francis leaves two weeks later, and by then she is reconsidering what she said about not having anything to like. It's not like she's been seeing him every week so she misses him, nor is she jealous that he has hobbies. But it is summer, the quadrangles are quiet, and maybe she can make something of the open space.<p>

Arthur's mother and father had put an advertisement in the paper; he is a glum, tall schoolboy she catches a glimpse of at the door of their house. Seeing him makes her feel, backwards, first relief that he will not miss it, and only second the fact that there might have been something to worry about in that respect.

The trumpet comes alongside some elementary books, which she decides to work through rather than seeking out a teacher of children. To her pleasant surprise, she finds that she can get through them rather quickly; much of the book seems to be trying to spell out nigh-unspellable advice on how to move her mouth to create more notes than simply pressing the three buttons allows. That, and free nights, let her skip large chunks of Arthur's books, and she buys an intermediate one come the weekend. It's full of technical exercises, though, and she does not crack it open as often.

Francis comes back, admitting in his effacing way that most of the trip was just for pleasure but that it had given him lots of ideas. "Such a place! Even from the outside, I mean, I was...Excuse me." He wipes off a trailing spaghetti. "This pasta is delicious. I'd try cooking for you myself, but my place is enough of a mess without it being on fire."

"That's fine."

He insists on cleaning up, and she lets him after the first two dinners—"if you're as hopeless as you say, it might give you some instruction." Now he knows where the glasses go, and the forks, and plates.

"And what's this?" He nods at the trumpet case.

"Oh." She blushes, and something within her blushes for blushing. She had _time_, once, she had _skill. _She could _control _her blushings, changing on command to lead boys on or draw them off. Now they are a thing of their own. "That's...I got a trumpet," she finishes with more vigor. Hadn't it been his idea, in a way?

"Oh? Brilliant! Do you play?"

"A little."

"Do...that's..." His authorship has not, clearly, furnished him an adequate supply of adjectives to deal with the situation. "Brilliant! Would you...do you think you could play for me sometime?"

"Might as well now," she says, because maybe her cheeks aren't hers to lead him on a merry tune with, but _it_ is.

She opens to the last page in Arthur's book. It's a simple song, arranged for simple children, but Francis doesn't seem to recognize that, and stands mouth barely open, feet too dug into the moment of the ground for rapture.

"That was..." At last abandoning the doomed quest for adjectival glory, he shakes his head. "I..._Music_. Ruddy spectacular. A couple cousins of mine can really _sing_, you know, I wish..."

She does not hear the end of his sentence, if there is one. Cousins. He has cousins. It is the first she has ever heard of his family.

There is the leverage, there in her hands, but she cannot press it because he will just as surely swing the see-saw back at her, sending her into the depths she will not answer. Back and forth, back and forth—for all he is like no one she has ever known, they are still caught up in other people's social niceties.

* * *

><p>They live a life of show and tell. He tells, details dropped through the lilt, and she picks up on them; no longer is there anywhere for his voice to transport her to, nor is she simply imagining it off the page, and she can listen to even the small details. Cousins, several; both parents still alive, he spends holidays with them; no mention of any siblings.<p>

He has been remarkably, in her opinion, quiet about—not his professional life, but his _profession_. It's not like she's ever dated other astronomers, but she is of the belief that they would find it all too easy to point out the constellations at night, try and be romantic. He never does.

But he does talk about his writing, at times, interviews he wants to set up, or that have fallen through. She is quietly grateful that she works in a department he will not bother.

One day, she tests him. "Francis, here's a pen and paper. I want you to write down, right now, the titles of three astronomy books I could find in a big bookshop if I went tomorrow. They don't have to be by you, just—they don't even have to be interesting or non-technical, not anything I would want to read even, but three that _exist_."

He blanches for a minute, but recomposes himself, and coolly writes down three. They're all there.

And that's who he is, someone she can (and does) doubt every day, but who she finds herself believing too.

She does the showing. He's improved at not letting on what he is actually familiar with and what is genuinely new to him, but the way he puts up with her field trips suggests he actually is learning quite a lot or has some other motivation for tagging along. Either way, as endearing as his dumb moments can be, she feels like it's not really fair to let him keep nodding absentmindedly at any allusion she makes.

He stands distant through one of the Proms shows in August, looking as if he would fall over if pushed. Susan cannot see his face but is confident that his mouth is hung open again. Neither of them have ever heard of the performers or the conductor. She at least has heard of Mozart. He at least has learned not to answer some of her leading questions. She thinks it's quite nice, and worth it just to hear his amazed sputter afterwards. He thinks it's quite nice too, seemingly aware of how silly he looks if he runs out of adjectives.

* * *

><p>"When's your birthday?"<p>

"Eh?"

"Your birthday?"

"February seventh," he says, eyes shrewd as if trying to remember something. "Is yours _next_ week? Or was it _last_ week?"

Now it's Susan's turn to stare as if there's something she's missing. "No."

"Why do you ask?"

"It's autumn and I'm sort of busy with school. Nothing else happens in autumn. I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing your birthday."

"You aren't. Yours?"

"April sixth."

Of course, the seasons change for him too, even flitting as he is, trying to piece the book together. Most of the people he wants to interview are academics, though they have little else in common, and when they bend to the whims of the calendar, so does he.

The Quidditch season, too, ebbs and flows. He goes to a Bats game with some old friends of his. It is a complete blowout but Ballycastle's Seeker is having a poor game, so it drags into the night while the Bats score goal after goal.

Theresa, another Ravenclaw from Portree, is increasingly edgy and frustrated as the game becomes ever more lopsided. She cheers, dimly, but after the first few hours the Ballycastle fans are just waiting for the end and the Portree fans are hoarse. It should be the other way around, he thinks—but no, they are spread all throughout the stadium, mixed together. Maybe if they were sitting as one the Pride fans would find a little more noise within themselves. But it's not just that there is no home section; there is no home _team_, period. There can't be, not when you play in the middle of nowhere to avoid Muggle eyes.

At least Theresa has some sort of home crowd around her; she is married, with a toddler and another child on the way. _Married already?_ Francis thinks. _Maybe I ought to get on with looking for a girlfriend—_but then the Portree Seeker goes into a dive, swerves to avoid a Bludger, they all sigh, and the match drags on.

"So tell me about the States," she asks, after the Pride Chasers miss yet another pass.

"Oh? They're...big," he ventures. "I wasn't very comfortable Apparating to places I'm not familiar with, so I just rode around a lot."

"Take in any Quodpot?"

"No, I was hoping to see some but wound up in the middle of Oklahoma—of nowhere, really." At her face, he adds, "Didn't get_ lost_. Plans just changed."

"Fair enough. Learn any new spells?"

"Couldn't quite get the sound right," he says, growing more effusive with each question. No, he didn't see that much different. No, he didn't really get homesick either. Yes, he had met a few people.

Back in England he could sort people into groups; there were his cousins and his school friends and his Muggle contacts. In America, there'd been...well, wizards, and Muggles like Kuiper, and Muggles like Willow's husband John—he couldn't work a spectroscope, but he knew the stories of the stars. And Susan wasn't like John, but he'd interviewed her, and wasn't like Kuiper, but he'd met her on the campus, and she wasn't a witch, but she was there in England with him...

"I say, did you have a wizarding wireless? What kind of stations do you get?"

"No, I didn't."

Her questions are rather silly ones, but she needs _something _to be excited about. The Bats go on to win, 630 to 170.

* * *

><p>Susan wakes up in the middle of the night, panting, like she's forgotten something. Something she needs to do? To get done?<p>

_Breathe_, she tells herself. _It's the weekend, it's Sunday, I don't have anything to do._ It's too dark to make out what the clock says, it must be very early in the morning. She lies awake, fretful, unsure what it is that's making her so upset.

Hours later, she does not know how long, she falls asleep at last and sleeps till noon. Still the same day. November. The twenty-eighth.

The answer comes clearly. _Mum and Dad's anniversary. And I'm the only one who can celebrate._

But what can she do? Light a candle? She pokes her head into a shop, sees families with the audacity of existing, and closes the door of faint glass because she is too tired to slam it. She goes home and bakes something that comes out burnt. She eats it without noticing.

Francis spends the day attempting to translate. When he reads astronomy textbooks in French, he can usually find out what's going on, if only by picking out the longest words and squinting to see what they mean. An accent mark here, a circumflex there; the stars are the stars.

But now it's philosophy of science or what have you, and it's unbearable. Not _quite_ because it's all foreign to him anyway, not _quite_ because the author is a bit full of it, but some weird mixture of the two. Impatient, he tries some spellwork he doesn't quite have under his belt, and winds up lighting the book on fire. A half-hearted _Aguamenti_ later and his kitchen is safe, and he's safe from another minute of the thing. Good riddance.

* * *

><p>"All right, Mr. Scientist, settle this for us."<p>

"Us?" He blinks. "Are we arguing?"

"No. I need to set Brenda straight. Can it ever be too cold to snow?"

"Too cold to snow? I don't think so, no."

Susan smiles, too proud of herself to listen to that voice telling her it's a rather stupid thing to smile about. "Thank you!"

"That's just what I _think_. I don't know anything about weather, really, well, not much. I...don't quote me on that."

And she scowls, curse these flickering moods. "Do you know anyone who would know?"

Francis pauses a minute. "Yes. Zachary. He's one of...you'd like him, I think."

* * *

><p>Francis thought wrong.<p>

Zachary is eager as ever, fingers punctuating the air as he spells out some kind of model of a thing. ("This is science's _moment_, right now; it's shown it can be more than _getting things right_ but really be_ useful_. We've got to strike now, get away from the details and start _making a difference_.")And Susan is as kind as ever, but cool, too, sitting back and shooting Brenda inscrutable glances. They'd all gone out for brunch together, wizard and Muggles alike, yet as he watches the women stiffen and only half-listens to incessant Zachary, Francis begins computing in his head.

There were...eight Ravenclaws in his year? More Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, that'd make a total of...and wizards lived longer than Muggles, which...

"I say, _you'd_ know all about that, wouldn't you? Those powers of ten tricks?" For a moment Francis is not sure whether he is listening to himself or—no, a piece of bacon falls from the waving fork, Zachary.

"I don't know what you're talking about," says Susan, neither ashamed nor proud.

"And what's it have to do with snow?" Brenda adds.

"Oh, never mind," Zachary says loftily, splattering omelette across the table.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry about that," Francis says a few days later. "I...thought you'd get on better. That was my mistake."<p>

"Good, now I can ask you, what was he on about?"

"Powers of ten," he says. "It's a little trick for when you're dealing with big numbers, you don't really care what the answer is as long as you can guess it and it has the right number of zeroes in it."

Susan's face suggests that she is trying to decide the right number of zeroes to bore into his skin with her eyes. "What was he _on_ about?"

"I'm not sure," he admits. He had by that time been realizing how few wizards there were, in general. Stupid of him, to think that Zachary and Susan would get along well just because they were both Muggles; it should have been the other way around, as far as she sees it he might as well be twins with any other wizard.

* * *

><p>He avoids her the awkward days before Christmas; she has said nothing about family, where she might be going, and there is no sign of a tree. It would be clever, he knows, to Apparate into her flat and leave a gift behind, but there would be too many questions.<p>

There's the usual blizzard of greetings and family friends and aren't-you-related-tos; he steps to the side and at least has not brought anybody along to make things more confusing. Yes, he's writing another book. Yes, he's able to live well enough off the first one. Yes, he has to talk to Muggles. No, they're all right. Yes, most of them are quite silly indeed. No, he hasn't an idea. No, he doesn't believe they'd met. No, she would have graduated too early. Is that the case? He'd never noticed that. Yes, Muggles have different ideas of what's old and young. He has to pass for older than he is, sometimes. No, he's not sure how well that's working. Oh yes? Charming. Indeed. No, he's quite glad they're seeking a more naturalistic experience, but he'd quite like to magic off the drool, thank you. No, not yet. Yes, of course. Is it that obvious that he's passing for old? Yes. Thank you.

My, what lovely food. Oh, his own cooking is rather rubbish really. Magical herbs? For _him_? Oh, Aunt Alyssum, you _shouldn't_ have. He'll try dreadfully hard not to make a mess of things. Thank you.

Yes, the States are quite big.

Yes, they keep in touch. No, he doesn't want to teach. No, he hopes Professor Lawrence will stay on for many years, he was quite a good teacher. Still is, I'm assuming. Yes, that's wonderful news. No, they're rather specialized. Yes? Really? That's brilliant.

Yes, London is busy. No, he hasn't run into Jack. He might have met some other wizards. Yes, they'd all be trying to blend in too. No, he doesn't know if he's particularly good at passing. Yes, for all he knows.

No, he doesn't have other large travel plans for the near future. Yes, he has some more interviews to schedule. No, Divination is beyond the scope of the next book. No, he's not sure he's had the pleasure. (_No, it probably wouldn't be a pleasure._) No, no thank you. No, he has quite enough sources for the time being. No, it's much appreciated.

Yes, that would be lovely. No, he doesn't have plans for then. Yes, yes, thank you.

* * *

><p>Trust Francis not to be shy. "I found a Christmas present for you and, short of breaking and entering—" He smiles, a large smile she's not sure she's seen on him. He can be delighted by trivialties, but to force the oversized grin is not his character—"didn't have a better way to get it to you. Well I could have sent a package. But that'd be a bit silly, seeing as how—"<p>

"It's all right, Francis," she smiles. "I got you something, too."

"Oh? Thank you very much."

She opens hers first. It is a snowglobe that plays...something to do with angels. Francis, of course, is beaming so thoroughly that she can't _not_ like it—"That's very cute. Happy Christmas. And thank you."

"Oh you're welcome. And what's this?" For she has produced a thin, flat gift, wrapped in a Boxing Day newspaper she did not read.

"See, it's hard for me to know what to get you, what you do or don't have, whether you have a record player or not, since I've never actually seen your flat."

"Oh—well—never mind that, I'm sure I'll find a use for..."

He rips it open and squints. "Oh! Thank you very much!" The smile is not that forced one, but neither is it his usual grin. Seeing that he is too proud to concede anything (does he know what it _is_? does he have a record player? does he know what a _record player _is?), she does not push the issue. They go out for dinner and order something ridiculous, something unseasonable, something that doesn't spell Christmas but she doesn't remember what. Halfway through she remembers that the song in the snow globe was "Hark The Herald Angels Sing." Songs have a way of getting wedged in your brain although, she mulls as they leave, "(How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window" might never really make it to Francis'.

* * *

><p>Francis thinks that the record would make a lovely decoration. He ponders hanging it from a window by his desk so it could slowly turn in the wind while the sun shone through. But he gathers it's not supposed to be used for that purpose.<p>

So one day when he's having lunch with Theresa he asks, "I say, do you know what a record player is?"

"Anwen Pritchard played top-flight Quidditch for thirty-four seasons, that's the record," she informs him.

"..right."

Eventually he wanders into a Muggle shop and asks where he can buy one. It works out to quite a lot of money, though, and he decides against it. So he hangs the record in the window after all. It's not as pretty as he expected and every once in a while the sun gets in his eyes.

He writes by night, then, sometimes, because even if this book isn't going to be solely about astronomy he likes to take a break and look for the moon. The London fog makes it a chore to pick out more than a few stars, but the moon is too close to ignore.

There are fewer interviews and more quills bitten, and with his withdrawal from normal people's sleep schedules means a withdrawal from their clocks. One frigid, dim six o'clock when he is supposed to meet Susan, no one is alive on the streets and he fears the worst; some Muggles have cast their bombs down upon the city and only some accidental burst of magic is keeping him from falling into their eternal twilight. Then he realizes that it's six in the _morning_.

Susan laughs when she hears. "That's why I need you," he confesses. "My other friends are...a bit strange too. I need you to tie me to the normal world."

She blushes. He sees the humility in her face, but not the embarrassment.

Though his other friends' sleep schedules, he knows, are tied less and less to wild nights at The Leaky Cauldron and more and more to crying babies. Whenever he suggests meeting up for a concert or a Bats game it's always some apologetic excuse, and never anything exciting either. So it's back to Susan and being quiet, trying not to let any revealing answer or dumb question slip out.

For her birthday he decides to give her something practical, something that _someone_ at least will be able to use without nearly incinerating _their_oven. In order to avoid the mistake of his book, he copies out the relevant pages longhand, but that's all he has ready in time to present to her. "Sorry, slow post."

"Eh?"

"I sent away for some of these special herbs—one of my friends is a gardener, grows his own. You'll see in the recipes where you need the special ingredients." Half of them he'd made up new names for, that Muggles wouldn't think anything of. He'd have to relabel them once they got in.

"And you never thought to order any for yourself?" she teases. "Thanks. This is brilliant."

Of course, when the herbs finally do arrive, once he's reattached the labels, it just means that he has another reason to meet up with her. "Stretch out the birthday celebrations," he says, "celebrate the whole week."

But she has stopped feeling festive. "Still growing old. I don't need to be reminded of it any more than once a year."

"Come, now. Your maturity is...admirable, especially compared to my ability to keep my flat in half-decent shape. Are there really that many youthful misadventures you've outgrown?"

She smiles weakly. "That's a good point. I don't need to be a child again."

Grown women, she thinks when she returns to her flat, have _houses_. Or at least their husbands do. Grown women have husbands, at that, and some even have children. There crawls time, Francis eking his way through like some blind overgrown snail, and she tilted sideways so she does not look ahead or behind.

Maybe she needs another job, one that won't link her to the academic year like some student. Maybe she needs to labor harder, find something that will really bleed every minute from her hours, do some good in the world instead of bowing and scraping to insufferable theorists. Or are they insufferable? Maybe they're just harmless old folks.

The herbs remain unopened for a week or two, there are all sorts of other things she wants to try, but then she invites Francis over without really thinking about it, and thereupon views them in a fresher light. Yes, she'll try.

She winds up making an odd sort of stuffing to go with a chicken. It tastes quite fresh in some way she can't quite put her finger on; hearty fare and not something to eat every day, but certainly pleasant. To her, anyway; Francis compares it nostalgically to his aunt's cuisine after his third bite and has to bite his tongue (or the chicken) to refrain from continuing to do so every fourth or fifth bite thereafter.

She decides without meaning to to space them out, not use the herbs very often, having unconsciously decided that all the herbs are probably like the one in the chicken—too pungent to use all the time. Perhaps because she has already made up her mind on the subject, this suspicion is borne out on the second and third time. Maybe eating alone isn't deserving enough of an occasion. She has a few cousins (still) to invite over, there are a few co-workers, none that she's too dear to but Sam is always witty company...

...and, of course, Francis. He does not speak of _his_ birthday, a rainstorm makes it too torpid to try and connect, and by the time the sun peeks out she just assumes he has friends to pass it with and does not invite him over until a week later. "Now you'll _have_ to spread the whole thing out for a week."

"Splendid! I, unlike you, quite enjoy celebrating."

She doesn't know what to make of that and is tempted to buy him some joke of a present. But no, he needs to take her seriously. In the end she decides on a watch that he seems shocked to receive. "I'm not _that—_" he cuts off. "No. I mean, thank you, thank you very much. And thanks for dinner, was that with the, erm..." What had he called it? Donnacht or something? "Irish mushrooms?"

"Yes, it was."

"That's excellent." Too excellent. She's always cooking for him and he there's nothing he can do for her, is there? Maybe he's what the philosophers he thinks are morons when he quotes are making fun of, the scientist who everybody respects but whose work only has the value he puts on it. "I ought to..."

He cuts himself off, but she will not let the matter pass. "Ought to what? Have birthdays more often?"

"That'd be good," he nods. If she's going to make it easier for him to cover, all well and good. So she does not know he has decided he really ought to _do_ something nice for her, something practical. Not volunteer to stay for the washing up, mind, that'd be a waste, but...something. He tells himself to think about it. She is left again to do the washing up by herself, and as she does, she realizes that the food didn't feel as strong as the extra ingredients have usually made it. Maybe they were just a placid strain of mushrooms, maybe she was so distracted by Francis' accounts of the week's revels she didn't taste it very much, maybe she's just getting used to that sort of food. No matter. There are more dishes than usual but it's not too bad a trade, after all.

Francis keeps mulling in the back of his mind as to what exactly he can do for her. He hasn't got a car so he can't offer to drive her places; she doesn't seem to like the Underground as much as him, so he can't buy her a season ticket; clothes are very practical things for men and it would have been quite sensible of _her _to get _him_ a nice new shirt, but she's a _Muggle woman _and, according to Zachary—

oh, Zachary's one to talk. Very well, then, he'll get her some clothing. And what? Give it to her as a sort of present? "No occasion or anything, I just thought you might..."

No, _practical_. Like cooking for him.

Maybe it doesn't have to be something she could see right away. Maybe, maybe he can start something really important and use her as inspiration; "if I get this done, then Su..." Yes.

And, feeling properly excited and uncharacteristically mature (he_ has _just had a birthday, after all), Francis returns to his flat and looks around.

No. Tomorrow.

* * *

><p>He wakes up the next day locked in the feeling of regret. He's done something the night before, something he shouldn't have done.<p>

But it's a decent hour in the morning, at least for waking up at, and he's in his flat, and he's _alone _in his flat. Everything's as it should be; the record is still hanging from the window, nothing seems to be broken, his drafts are still on his desk. Nervous, he flips through, but all the pages are in as right an order as they were the previous day.

He goes out into the living room to take a look around. Books are piled two deep on one bookshelf while various knickknacks litter the other. Navigating to the kitchen is possible, with effort, although it hardly seems worth the wait as he steps in, preemptively holding his nose as he reaches for a loaf of bread. It's not in too bad a shape (he's had a lot of practice with demolding spells, but most of them shrivel up his actual food anyway), so he toasts a couple slices and switches on the wireless.

Another normal morning.

Maybe, he blearily thinks, _that's_ what he'd identified as the problem. Yes. In some burst of stupid inspiration the previous night he'd had the brilliant idea, brilliant like the moon at Earthshine in that it's not actually bright at all (but you can _see_ it, somehow), that he should actually clean up the place to make it at least feasible to invite Susan over someday.

Fool.

Well, he wouldn't show her his study, so maybe he could just haul some of the rubbish from the living room in there. He carries a few loads, decides maybe it would feel tidier if he shoved some under the bed, decides he's mature enough not to do that, decides to clean up some of the phrasing in his draft instead. This accomplished, he turns his attentions back to the living room. All right...his books, now, they're stacked two deep _anyway_. If he can just rearrange them, put the wizarding books in back and leave the Muggle ones out front. And he'd need more Muggle ones to go on the ends so if she looks at the shelf from the side she won't see anything funny. And if some of the magical books are taller than the Muggle ones, he'll...he'll, take off the covers, leave them on his desk and, if the titles are still there...some Disillusionment charm. Yes, that'll work. But they fade every day. Oh, he might as well just wait to cast it until she shows up. Might as well use magic on the whole place, try and create some elaborate Muggle illusion.

Might as well try and do something about the smells in the kitchen. Even he, who's fairly well desensitized by now, still notices them. Would a strong enough charm mask them? How long would they take to fade?

He goes back to his study and half-attentively bangs out an outline for another chapter, adding full paragraphs here and there when he wants to. The idea of being productive at least _has_ had some visible effect. Just not the kind of productivity he was hoping for.

She's given him such nice things; well, maybe not ones he knows how to put to use, but at least things that have nothing to do with his job. Other people would have found a cheap pair of binoculars or some schmaltzy book and claimed oh, he'd love it, he's an astronomer after all. But she's a true friend, she's given him gifts she could give to any person.

And he does not know how to be true to her.

* * *

><p>Sometimes Susan wonders if the professors she sees around the office ever write books. She supposes they do; they're professors of English, after all, surely they write something. Some are fastidious, some are strange, some are fastidious to the point of being strange, some come in for long office hours, others don't, a few don't get tenure and are cast off, many others <em>do<em> get through the process and get it. All of them have similar demands; the cycle of the academic year is upon them all, as a cold April turns to a cool May, they surely have different responsibilities for their teaching. And there they are, every week at the same time, assigning essays and books to read even as (she presumes) they have writing of their own to accomplish.

Not for the first time, she wonders how Francis pulls it off. There's still no way of knowing how he lives; is there a roommate, perhaps, someone he doesn't want her to see? Does he still _live _with his family and is embarrassed about it? No sense in such questions, not so long as he's there to meet her for evenings of company, but seeing the professors bustle about on the same clock as her, it's hard not to be curious.

And then, there are the hints that he has quite a lot of money after all. "Look," he says, "you always cook for me, and I really appreciate it, and I'd try to return the favor but that would be quite hazardous. In the interest of your well-being, would you like me to instead treat you to dinner? Somewhere nice, if you don't mind going by train you can tell me where you'd like to go, I don't eat out a lot. Although maybe I should, it'd probably be better than my own..."

"Francis," she smiles, putting up one hand, "that would be lovely." They usually split the cost of meals when they eat out, Francis seems to think it's just the thing to do and she doesn't mind handling her owm expenses. But if he's had a change of tune, far be it from her to object.

She doesn't know of many really good restaurants, so in the end they settle on something near campus. It's warm enough that she walks to the office and back for her "commute"; it takes longer, yes, but there's not really that much to fill her days. What's odd is that, other than the bit of money she saves, she doesn't mind taking the trains. She's not fearful enough to walk through London in the winter if she doesn't have to, yet in the hazy border between winter and spring she is unsure whether her itch to get on the train is really driven by fear of crashing or fear of being so oblivious to her past that she could just get on a train like nothing had ever happened. By May, though, there is no excuse not to walk back. She just takes a detour one evening.

It's a great meal, actually, some excellent salad before a rich fish dinner. She remembers later on because that night was so disappointing, if it had been some story there really would have been some symbolism in how something just felt off. But all the food is good; Francis is having some red meat and is enjoying the night just as much as she is, if for slightly different ways. When the waiter comes by with the check, Francis is a little too proud in waving for it. "Oh, yes, yes, I'll take it."

"Happy to pay up?" the waiter chuckles. "That's a new one. Don't mind him, missy, he'll calm down a bit after the first date."

Susan laughs. "We haven't exactly had a very standard relationship."

Francis's head is down looking at the bill so she cannot see his face, but once the waiter has walked away he looks up in concern. "I say, Susan, when you say relationship...we're not _dating_, are we?"

"What do you mean we're not dating?"

"You—" his face has fallen. "You thought we were _dating_? This isn't what dating is, is it really? Have you ever, I mean—"

"Spending quite a lot of my time with a man who is a lot closer than my other friends? Having you over and cooking for you? Going out to a nice restaurant and you paying for me? Yes, Francis, I was under the impression that we were dating. Or is there someone you don't want to talk about?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, good grief, you thick..." Something in her retards her thinking and prevents her from coming up with any fitting nouns. "How long have we known each other, years now, and where do you get the idea we're not...you really are as thick as you look."

He does not respond. Perhaps he agrees. It's only a minute or two before the waiter comes back, but how quiet a minute or two with them staring in disbelief. When he comes, he knows better than to interfere, just squeaks out an "Oh dear" and takes Francis' proffered check.

Francis sleeps thinly that night, waking up very early in the morning and lying in bed for several hours. He can go back to sleeping whenever he feels like it, he tells himself. She does not want who she thought he was, there is nothing left there. But Susan wakes up comfortably late, it is a Saturday morning and she feels refreshed. She has had more time to think of Francis and all the things he does not know. He is endearing in his way, even in his ignorance. Probably he is not really upset, he just didn't realize what they were doing. But it is not like he will make a bad boyfriend; he already is a very good one. He just needs to know, is all.

So she calls him up, and that is what at last pulls him out of bed. (He had some trouble with the telephones at first, but has needed it for other contacts of his, so by the time he met Susan he knew very well how to use it.) "Hullo?"

"Francis? It's me, Susan."

"Oh."

"I wanted to apologize for last night."

"No, don't, it's—"

"I was being silly, I thought you knew more than you did, but it's okay. Even if you've never had a girlfriend before, you're doing a very good job at it. Let's just keep on being who we are."

"No. I can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought—I thought we were friends. Very good friends, of course, but still just—it's that, I don't want, I don't want to fall in love with you. I want to have a girlfriend some day, I want to get married, just to, to, someone more like me."

Susan is for a second curious—from what Francis has told her, if there are other women in the world who are anything like him, they would be a very dangerous couple if they did not starve to death or burn up in a kitchen fire. But instead she is just mad, mad at herself for not seeing his cluelessness. "And I'm not good enough for you?"

"You are, you are, but...there are things, things about myself I can't just tell people. Not unless I could be sure I had their promise to keep quiet. If, if we were _going _to marry that'd be one thing, but this isn't what I had imagined."

"Then maybe we had better see other people."

"I was always going to. Someday. I just never got around to it, is all. Can't we still be friends like we were?"

"No." She shakes her head through the phone. "Not like we were."

* * *

><p>It is a dull summer, but they bring it to life, they and the people they meet. For they <em>do<em> see other people, and once they start looking there is no shortage of possible candidates. Francis had never made it a goal of his to look for witches in _that_ way. There was Mary from Gryffindor during his fifth year, her seventh, yes, but that was a short thing. Once he started, though, he found it a rather straightforward process.

Susan, meanwhile, meets Daniel in a coffee bar she goes to one night. Walking the same route to campus and back feels safe enough, but going out of her way always seems a bit too adventurous to her liking—at least until he and his friend Roger start playing music there. The music is not quite to her tastes, and Roger's voice is nothing to write home about even if she'd heard it far from home, but Daniel's fingers as he grips the guitar—half-manic, half-inspired—are something strong.

The follow-up act, a tall young woman who sings solos, takes the stage as Daniel and Roger depart it and go back to their own table, eyes wide as they jabber about their performance. "Do you play here often?" Susan asks after they die down.

"We're hoping to," says Roger. "Only got booked once."

"You like us, then?" Daniel says eagerly. "Come around to hear us more often, we play anywhere we can get." Roger shoots him a look. "What? Not like that."

For a few days she is afraid he'll turn out like Francis, only in this case just thinking of her as a devoted fan. Once she pulls him away from Roger, though, she is able to bring the conversations elsewhere. Oh, Daniel can talk about elsewhere, how he'd hitchhiked to Liverpool to stay with his cousin one summer, how music is changing in the States (and hasn't she been there? and what did she think? and isn't it just good fortune that they'd found each other?), but his very favorite elsewhere to talk about is the elsewhere the band is going to, soon. "Do you work in the university, then? You could follow us around, during the summers."

"This is summer," she tells him, "and here I am."

"That's right. You oughta just stay put for a while, I think, while we play around. By next year, you watch, we'll be going places. Then you can come with me, us."

And she would wait a year. A year is nothing, and he is handsome. But she sees the same faces in the crowds night to night at the coffee bar (they went even when he wasn't playing, just to be together), the different people coming to watch their friends, not drawing in new fans, and doesn't think that they are actually going to go anywhere after all.

Francis reconnects with Annie, who was a Beater for Ravenclaw. She'd hoped to play professionally and, after schlepping their equipment around for several years, eventually had made the Chudley reserve team. This particular achievement was both impressive and un-; they were by some distance the worst side in the league, and thus making it to their reserves was by some distance the least achievement of any professional. On the other hand, given their streak of luck, their starters were perhaps unusually likely to pick up a freak injury and necessitate her service. They didn't, Chudley signed an overpriced phenom out of Hogwarts in her place, and she found doing some job in the Department of Magical Games and Sports she tells him he doesn't want to hear about.

"Yes I do," says Francis. He had been Quidditch announcer his seventh year after, four years previously, he had nearly fallen off his broom during his first, and only, tryout. "That sounds interesting."

"It isn't."

"It's for your own good," she furthers when he presses her for details of her...accomplishment would be pushing it, granted, but hadn't she met interesting people? Weren't there just _funny _moments when you trained with the Cannons?

"And mine," she further furthers. "I don't wanna live in the past."

Then perhaps failing to live up to her desires is what frustrates her. For her face is full of gloom, gloom as she thinks about her (in true Chudley style, errant) shot at glory, as she thinks about whatever the future might bring (and Francis nervously looks towards the exit). When he can get her to talk about the more distant past, Hogwarts, she is more chipper, but only for a short time. "Ten years since I've graduated. Merlin. Twelve since we won the Quidditch cup with Ray and them, I can't believe it. Do you ever see Ray?"

"No. He was a bit stuck-up, wasn't he?"

"More than a bit, let me tell you. But he had the _right_ to be..."

He is not sure what Annie will ever find to be proud of, if not stuck-up about. Perhaps they could get married. Perhaps they would have beautiful purebloods with their father's gift for writing and their mother's for flight, golden Eagles who excel. Perhaps she would be proud of them, perhaps she would be bitter it wasn't her. Perhaps it will be as part of a happy family that she finds something to be happy about, but oh Merlin he doesn't think he can stand it.

Susan meets Michael at Eugene's birthday party. Neither of them have ever met Eugene, and neither were invited.

But there they are at a restaurant, each eating at separate tables, when a rousing cheer at a long nearby table (several tables pushed together, really), informs the entire restaurant that, Eugene is a jolly good fellow according to quite a large group of his friends, and moreover is celebrating a birthday today.

"Poor cancer," mutters a dark voice.

Susan is so struck by it she forgets to care whether the guest of honor is in fact stricken with a terminal disease, and glances around. It's got to be that short, nervous-looking man glancing at the party. "Do you know him?"

"Eh? No. Just an unlucky day to be born, this one. Sign of the crab and all. Bad fate in store for the fellow this year—no matter _how_ jolly good he is," he smiles, looking up at Susan. "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Know him?"

"Oh? No."

"That's good, that's quite good. Excuse me, what are we doing?"

"Sorry. Haven't introduced myself very well. I'm Susan."

"Oho, are you now? I'm Michael, me."

Within a week, they have met again. Michael is quick to inform her that she, as an Aquarius, is a "fixed sign," whereas he, an Aries, is a "cardinal."

"So you're not only a sheep, you're also a bird?"

"Nay, nay, my dear. _Cardinalis_, moveable, the hinge of a door." Every once in a while he'll throw in some Latin, or what he claims is Sanskrit. At first Susan would like to deny it, but after all it's not like she knows Sanskrit.

"Thus is the great fault of the British stock," he explains one night when he has tried to convince her to drive out of the city with him (unlike Francis and even Daniel, he at least has a _car_.) "If it isn't the fog of the countryside, it's the lights of the grand city. You're so used to not being able to see the skies, you don't feel how powerful an inference the stars have on you."

She'll say one thing for the night sky; if it's dark enough, he won't be able to try and read her hand. He would hold her hand gently at first, and it _was_ a nice change from how Francis never really touched her (how could she have been so dumb? how could _he—_oh, but never mind Francis, she had Michael to deal with now and he was challenge enough).

"And you, my dear, are an Air sign at that; surely you must yearn for the pleasures of the bright air."

"Now hold it," she says, because as silly as almost every word that comes out of his mouth is she still holds on to them, "what's all this about air now? I thought you said I was fixed?"

"That would be your _quality_, not your _element_. Four elements, three qualities, they come together to make the twelve signs."

"So not all the signs are fixed, then?"

"Of course not? I am _cardinalis_, you remember..."

Because she is beginning to think that, for Michael, it is what is _fixed_ that will always matter, fixed by the distant stars as if anything could be. And when he lapses into Latin again, she is almost grateful.

Katherine has only just graduated but she is of age, isn't she? A cute Hufflepuff ("me dad was a Slytherin, fell in love with a Muggleborn against his will, now here I am"), it takes Francis a few dates to see her as someone old enough to date. In the Muggle world this would never do, but they're not_ in _the Muggle world, he reminds himself—they can go to proper wizard bars and drink Firewhisky.

She still lives with her family and seems interested in his. "What then, a nice house in the countryside? Have you got house-elves, too? Only Mum says ours is quite too small for elves and the neighbors might see, but I tell her she's talking rubbish, of course."

"We had a very old elf. Belonged to my grandparents, first, we took him in cause he was old. Really didn't do much for us, more a charity case. I expect he might be dead by now."

Katherine gasps. "They'd _write _to you and tell you, surely?"

"I reckon so," he says, and makes a mental note to ask about Odd Edd's health just in case. (He turns out to be still alive, if senile and rarely leaving the couch.)

"So tell me about Hogwarts. Professor Lawrence was my favorite teacher, is he still teaching there?"

"Eh now? Oh, Astronomy. Yes, he's still there. Let's see, we got a new teacher in...Herbology. Professor Pickering is teaching it now, took over from Madam Nichols."

"Madam _Nichols_?" he repeats.

"Oh aye. I haven't forgotten her name, have I? Only she taught me first year through fourth, so I think I'd know her."

"Oh. I forgot, _I _didn't have her—I dropped the class after third year, and she was just arriving then."

"Oh. All right. Well, not much is new, Ravenclaw won the House Cup so well done...your lot, I suppose." He would not recognize any of those students, of course, but that's neither here nor there. "Gryffindor were champions of Quidditch, their captain Ellen Fuller is just a sixth year but everyone knows she'll sign for some good team as soon as she leaves school."

Katherine had N. E. W. T.s in Charms, Potions, and Transfiguration, with an E in the former and As in the latter two. "Always been a bit decent at Charms, me—not to brag."

"Oh, of course not."

"No, but as I say, just had a knack for the thing. Potions, eh, always helpful to be a good potion-maker, innit? Keep a few spares on hand just for accident."

"I would just want to buy some at the shop," he confesses.

"All well and good for you with your book money, eh? Me, I—our family's in a good place, all told, but I haven't got all that on hand right now."

"That makes sense. Are you looking for a job, then?"

"Me? Oh no, I'm not...not cut out for the working world, myself."

"That's silly, there's lots of jobs that don't need special study. If you're good at Charms...or even, you could find a nice job that wouldn't need to use a lot of magic. Maybe you could write for _Witch Weekly_." Katherine had written stories for her friends at school ("Just little things we'd pass around the common room, nothing too long,") mocking actual news articles in the _Daily Prophet _as well as happenings around Hogwarts. "And you've got to show those stories to me, some time, I think they'd be really nice ways of keeping track of what's happening at Hogwarts."

"Ah, no, not to a real writer, they're nothing special. Wouldn't want you to think littler of me."

"I wouldn't! I know you're still..." S_till a child_, he whispers to himself, but no—she has treasured every moment they spend together with just as much appreciation as he has. "Well anyway, I think you might be a great writer to. What else would you be?"

"Why, I'm to be a mum, of course."

"You're—" he glances at her. There'd been a kiss or two shared between the two of them, certainly, but nothing more. "Excuse me, come again?"

"I'll be a mum, once I've settled down."

Phew. "But you're not going to get a job or anything?"

"Ooh no. I want a large family, lots of kids, I'll have a job looking after 'em and my husband can go off to work. Or stay in his study and work," she grinned, "whichever."

But as far as he was concerned, both of their options had rather decisively thinned.

Susan and Charles meet through Brenda and Sam; they're having a party to welcome baby Linda. Sam and his friends seem exhausted of all the pink clothing, and drift into their own conversations, eventually settling on voting habits.

"I haven't really got around to it," Susan admits. "I guess I don't see the point of it, really."

Charles looks up at her with wondering eyes. "Have we met?"

"I don't think so. Are you a friend of Sam's?"

"Sort of. Know him from school."

"Ah, that'd explain. I'm Susan, I work at the university with Brenda."

"Oh." He looks almost downcast for a second, but when the conversation switches over to football neither of them are interested anymore. All throughout the afternoon, he seems like he's holding back from telling her something, but channels his eagerness elsewhere, asking her how she likes work.

"It's all right. I can't complain."

"Course you can, there's bound to be something you don't like."

"I'm not sure. I mean it's not the most interesting work, but I don't mind, I'm getting rather good at it—"

"Ah, c'mon, sure you mind. Nothing ever happened when people said there wasn't anything to mind."

"What should I want to happen?" Because there are things she wants to happen, someday, maybe even things he could be involve in. But right now he's just confusing.

"It's not a question of want," he says.

The party dies down, and he suggests they get together again sometime, talk through things more. She agrees. They say they'll meet in a park two Sundays from then, at noon. He pushes it back to the next Friday—"things came up"—and then to the ensuing Tuesday—"can't be helped"—and she doesn't mind because he at least is mature, has some kind of responsibilities.

When they finally do get together again he does not quite unleash the wellspring of words that had been boiling up in him beforehand, because he had looked like a kettle about to boil and now he is just a geyser, something of the natural world. She listens, half to what he is saying about workers and the working class, half to the insistent rhythms of his voice, and every once in a while gives a start and an "eh?" And he is momentarily upset that she has not been taking it all in, and then quite forgets that he had been upset, and starts up again about something else.

She does not mind the arrangement; there is no question that she is not just there to listen to him. He understands what he is doing with her, even when she admits there might not be much to see in him. In the end that's why he breaks it off. "I can't afford this right now. Not unless you'd like to get more involved with _us_." She has met the _us_, always in public spaces—at least one of them, she is confident, actually owns a house or has a more appropriate space for them to meet at, but none of them are willing to admit it to the others. They are almost all like him, except full of a half-cloaked scorn on her for existing, him for falling in love with her. "I just don't feel confident enough to...stay with you like this. But listen, Su, I really...love you, I do. And it isn't like you're going to have a choice, in the end, when things get...not _messy_ or anything. But things are going to heat up someday, soon I think, so you might as well realize what you're fighting for _now_. Some of the others can be jerks I know but that's just because they don't—"

"Charles?" she cuts him off. "That's all right."

And he leaves, disappointed, and she is left frustrated too. Frustrated that she can't find anyone who doesn't believe in something stupid.

On the Underground, Francis scribbles in the margins of a biography of Isaac Newton. It's a Muggle book—some of them realize that Newton was a great wizard, but they haven't got all the facts about his alchemical successes quite right. Still, it's a good source.

"Oughta be careful where you take notes," says a tall woman next to him, black hair dyed green.

"Excuse me?" he says, a little annoyed.

She taps where he's scribbled _but c.f. Flamel_. "Wouldn't want prying eyes to come across things they shouldn't, would you now?"

The train pulls to a stop and she winks as she disembarks. Is this a Ministry setup? Are they going to arrest him? If he can explain...

A tormented moment later, Francis takes off after her, book clumsily clutched to his chest. "Wait up, wait up!"

"Oh, come on now, that's hardly the way to avert suspicion."

"Look," he seethes, "_who are you_? Flamel's name is known in the," he drops his voice, "Muggle world, if any Muggle had come across that I could have explained."

"Oh? And Gamp?"

"I could have written him off as some scientist, they're not very famous. Do you read everyone's notes?"

"Oh no. Only the idiots'."

It's been a while since he's felt this _challenged_. "Then write your own books, don't just sit around and spook people who can actually write their own."

"Only the _handsome_ idiots'," she amended. "If you'd been any uglier I wouldn't have warned you. I'm doing a good deed for you, you know."

"Yes, by making me miss my connection."

"I didn't force you to follow me out here!"

"I'm not enough of an _idiot_," he spits, "to just let you leave, you might have been working for the Ministry."

"Who says I'm not?"

"What do you _want_? If you're going to arrest me, be quick about it."

"I've already got what I want; I warned a handsome idiot and maybe saved him some trouble down the line. Mission accomplished."

"Congratulations," he sighs. "Hold it, where are we?"

Because he has been following her, he realizes, without thinking about it—well, she was in a rush, she'd got off the train before him.

He glances around, and sure enough, it's The Green Man, a wizarding pub. Not the kind of place he would have taken Katherine, but it's been a while since he'd had a nice wild night.

And he has to go inside, after all, because maybe he can get the last word after all. "So, you're going to a wizarding pub on the _Underground_? Didn't know the Ministry hired kids who couldn't even pass their Apparition test."

"I have a job that requires meeting contacts in the Muggle world," she says with a failed attempt at smugness. "Less suspicious this way. And don't you have a train to catch? To where you were _supposed_ to go?"

There's no way he's going to walk away from this. "Haven't either."

"Pity. I'd buy you a drink, but you're so foolish sober I'd hate to see you drunk."

"That's quite all right. I have a job, too, which gives me plenty of spending money."

"Very well, then, I'll wash my hands of your folly."

They must make an odd pair, there at the Green Man; two customers at a side booth, with separate tabs, glaring at each other and making increasingly weak, if accompanied by increasingly vociferous hand gestures, as the evening draws on. One glass of Firewhisky. Two. She switches to some Spanish brew. He asks the bartender for a surprise. She switches away from beer entirely. So does he. There are still words coming out of their mouth.

"Yeranidiot."

"Mhm. Nyour talkin' to me."

"I made a buncha mistakes."

"Mhm. Not me, though."

"Didden either."

"Innit?"

"Aye."

"Your hair is green."

"Aye."

"I like it."

"I like you."

"I'm an idiot."

"I know. I passed my Apparition test."

"So did I."

"On the second try."

"First."

"i could take you back to my place."

"Snice?"

"Mm. C'mon then."

"I'm drunk."

"We could do stuff."

"What kinda stuff?"

"You're an idiot."

"Maybe when we get married."

"Are you a pureblood?"

"Mmhmm."

"I'm a Mudblood." She giggles. "I'm a Mudblood."

"I think you're drunk."

"I don't wanna marry you. Don't wanna marry no more purebloods. Gonna find another Mudblood and we're gonna have babies. Baby wizards and witches. No more purebloods."

"I'm not on the Floo network."

"I passed my Apparition test."

"I don't believe you."

"Come back to my place."

"Hey barkeep?"

The bartender, who had not predicted exactly how the night would turn out but would have bet on something amusing, ambles over. "I think you two have had enough to drink."

"This place gotta Floo?"

"That it does."

"How much it costs for a couple pinches? Me'n'her gotta go."

"Where you going to?"

"Diagon Alley. Got an inn in."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"Who drank more? Me or her?"

"You did."

"Ain't fair. Women is small."

"An extra Sickle for the each of you."

Grumbling, Francis hands over the first two coins he could find (one Galleon and one Knut). The bartender does not press the issue, but leads them to a fireplace in the back. Gripping the staggering witch tightly, Francis slurs, "Diagon Alley," and they are gone.

The innkeeper in the Leaky Cauldron is not pleased at being pressed into business at that hour in the night. The witch is conscious enough to answer "one" when he ask how many rooms they want; sighing, Francis helps her into the bed, lies down on the floor at the foot of the bed, and is quickly asleep.

When he wakes up, he lies there silently. As he becomes more aware of noticing things other than the pain in his head, he gradually pieces together that he has been on the floor the whole night, and that he does not know the witch's name and never did. It could be worse.

She is still out cold. He gives her some time to wake up, drinking coffee down in the Leaky Cauldron—he's run up enough of a bill over the last twelve hours, it won't make a difference—and eventually window-shopping at Quality Quidditch Supplies. She wakes up when he walks back in then, and does need to be reminded of the facts he had ascertained on the floor.

"Maybe we can start again," she suggests. "I'm Dory."

"I thought you said you didn't want to get into a serious relationshp with a pureblood. Or was that just the Firewhisky talking?"

She debates this. "No, it wasn't just the Firewhisky. But just because I don't want anything serious doesn't mean I don't want anything silly."

"No thanks," he says. "Can we split the cost of the hotel?"

"I suppose," she sighs.

Francis is feeling strong enough to Apparate home, although the pain has only deadened a little. He sits down at his desk. He sighs.

He takes out his quill, and writes two letters.

* * *

><p>When Susan receives the letter her first instinct is to check the return address. Still Paddington. For some reason she thought he'd be back in the States; at least he might have <em>called<em>.

Dear Susan,

I hope you're well. I hope you've had a great summer, had some fun, that the new school year makes work interesting but not too difficult. I'm sure you'll manage whatever life throws at you.

I...took your advice. I went and dated other women. Really meant it. But things didn't work out, and I think I know why. I still care about you. Maybe I don't care about you in the right way, maybe all I ever wanted was to be your friend, but I do want to be your friend if there's any way. You don't have to cook for me, I won't take you out to dinner, but maybe we could talk again sometime.

You can reach me at the same phone number. If you don't want to, don't bother.

Best always,

Francis

She calls him at noon, almost as soon as she gets the letter. He, not having expected her to call, is asleep when the phone rings, but is again jolted awake by her voice.

"Francis? Hello."

"Susan! Hi. You, erm, got my letter then?"

"Yes. My summer has been...eventful, but I...miss you. I wouldn't mind being friends with you again. Although I'm not sure what I'd have to do differently if we were just friends."

"That's excellent. I'm...waiting on an important bit of post, and then I have an idea for what we could do."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I'll explain in a week or so." He hopes.

It's a long week for Francis. Not particularly for Susan; the vague idea of being friends with Francis again, even without any specific plans is sufficiently pleasant to brighten her mood. Maybe she won't ever find a decent boyfriend; well, so be it then, she doesn't really need to be drawn too close to anyone now. But Francis finds it difficult to concentrate, eyes sweeping the skies. At least the Muggle post comes once a day; he can check it and be done. But owls might come any time of day.

The owl arrives in the late afternoon; Francis has half a mind to make it stay and tip it only if it brings good news. But he tips it anyway, waiting until he is alone to, nervously, rip it open.

If it is bad news? Can things keep going on as they had been? Maybe, he concedes, maybe it won't be so bad.

_Dear Mr. Lupin,_

_Further to your inquiry of_ oh, enough with the syntax, cut to the chase! His eyes feverishly race down the page, and then, _there_!

She is not home from work yet, and he waits to call again.

"Su?" he says, nervous with excitement when he finally reaches her, "Would you...would you like to visit my flat?"

* * *

><p>It is in Paddington. She takes the Underground there by herself, it is fine, and when she read the building's address off the envelope she wondered why she'd never asked if that might be a lie. But he had no incentive to lie.<p>

He waits for her outside the building. It's tall and grey, nothing too special.

"Hullo then." He's grinning, broadly but nervously. "Maybe you've gathered—I'm not sure—this is about a bit more than my flat. I've got, permission. Permission to tell you things, but you _have to swear_. Have to swear to keep quiet. Not because we'll be anything more than very good friends, but—"

"Francis?" She cannot meet his eyes, but after Charles, she needs to be sure. "Are you a spy?"

"A what?" He nearly jumps out of his shoes. "One of those nutters from Russia or something? No, no."

"This secret, then, is it something that could hurt somebody?"

"No. Well I mean, I don't—it's nothing bad, it's just not something I can go telling everyone about."

"Then why's it a secret?"

"You'll...well, maybe you won't see. If you don't want to you can go on back."

"Don't tell me this is some silly ruse because you're embarrassed that your flat is a pit."

"No. Well, it _is_, and I _am_, but this is real. As real as anything is."

He meets her gaze, unflinching.

"All right," she finally says. "I promise."

His smile is not one of relief, or joy, but a mild wistfulness. "Okay. Here we go."

The inside of the building is just as unremarkable as the outside. He lives on the eighth floor, and they take an ordinary lift up.

"Okay." He fumbles with his keys. "Here we are, then."

The living room does not reek as much as she expected, and the floor is more or less clear. "This isn't so bad," she says approvingly.

"Thanks. I shoved a lot of the junk elsewhere. Um. Maybe you ought to meet Nuncius."

"Who?"

"My owl," he smiles awkwardly, pointing to a cage on a bookshelf. "Some people have carrier pigeons. I have a messenger owl."

"Oh? That's nice."

"Right." She doesn't seem to have noticed the book titles. Maybe she's not the type to peer around other people's bookshelves. "Right, er, Su, there's no easy way to put this. I'm, um, a wizard."

"A what?"

"A wizard. A magician."

"Is that so?" She smiles. "Have you got a saw in back?"

"A saw?" She's taking it surprisingly well. "No."

"All right, then. What was it I couldn't see?"

"What?"

"You made your flat sound like it had some big secret, when it was just your owl, your magic kit, and your inability to cook."

"Susan, these things are dangerous. You can't go around telling your other friends that you've got a friend who's a wizard."

"Sure I can. You're an author who puts on magic shows once in a while, nothing wrong with a little side job."

"Magic shows? No, I don't do any showing-off."

"Then what's all this about magic?"

"I'm a _wizard_, I tell you."

"You're a magician."

"Yes."

"But you don't put on magic shows."

"No."

"Then what's the big secret?"

"Su, c'mon, the magic is. I can't have people running around thinking that I'm going to turn them into rabbits."

"But you're not going to turn anyone into rabbits."

"Course not. But I can't tell people, this is pushing the rules as it is."

"The rules? Magicians aren't supposed to explain how they do their tricks, right, but of course you tell people when you _are_ a magician."

Francis looks scandalized. "No I don't! That's illegal!"

"_Illegal_? Look, you've got to put up ads somewhere, how else do you make any money?"

"I'm an author, I sell books."

"So you don't do magic?"

"Yes I do."

"Where?"

"Here. With the other witches and wizards—there are others, it runs in families, that's why I could never tell you about mine."

"Your family is all magicians?"

"Yes."

"Do any of _them_ do shows?"

"No. There are really only a few people who do shows."

"Then why do the rest of you make a big deal about it? Or you at least."

"We can't have everyone knowing about magic, they'll come to us with their problems."

"They who? What problems?"

"Everyone. Will want things solved by magic."

"Francis," she says, "people go to magic shows for _entertainment_. They don't really think that the people on stage have powers to solve their problems."

He sits down, weak-legged. "Oh. No. You were talking about _those_ kinds of shows. No." He reaches for his pocket, pulling out a short wooden stick and his keys. He points the stick at them, says something in...Latin? And a moment later his keys are gone and three mice are clambering across the floor.

She raises her eyebrows. "Very funny. You've got a trick set of keys and there are some mice in your room."

Francis sighs. "_Wingardium leviosa_."

And then she is—only a few inches, but unmistakably, up in the air.

"Francis."

He says nothing, but continues to point the stick at her.

"Put. Me. Down. And stop pointing that...that..."

"It's a wand," he helpfully adds.

"At me."

"Of course." With a mockingly deferential nod, he waves the...the _wand_, and deposits her on the floor.

Now it is her turn to sit in shock.

"What can you _do_?" she finally breathes after a while. "Can you...you could really hurt someone."

"Yes. But other witches and wizards are armed, too—with these—and they'd defend themselves. And if I tried to hurt a—someone like you, I'd be in big trouble with our authorities as well as yours."

"You have your own police, then."

"More or less."

She shakes her head. "How many are there? Like you?"

"I'm actually not sure. But very few, compared to normal people."

"And you just...pass for normal? Does your landlord know? How many people have you told?"

"As of now? One."

She sinks deeper into the chair.

"And it took a lot of paperwork to get permission to do even this. It's been a bear to work with Muggles—we don't have university, see, we come of age at seventeen and leave school later that year, so of course I don't have any credentials. I could try falsifying some but my work isn't worth that much."

"Have you ever done magic on me before? Quietly?"

"No! And I probably _couldn't_, either, not without taking my wand out—but it would be wrong. Nor anyone else who wasn't magical."

"You can do _magic_," she repeats. "Why would you spend your time talking to professors in America?"

"Like I told you, to interview and learn more about science, how...your sort find things out. You've built some really neat telescopes."

"I haven't."

"Right. You...lot, which is the vast majority of the world. Sorry. This conversation isn't any easier for me."

She shakes her head. "And you can't just do magic to get fresh food?"

"Not with my wand. There are some limits. No creating love, no raising the dead."

Something sparks in the back of her mind, something she can't put her finger on, something...

Nothing happens. There is Francis, with that wand in his hand, trying to look for the first time in three years like he's not ridiculously out of place. And still a bit failing.

"And the owl. I suppose he talks?"

"What? No. He's an owl. Owls don't talk."

Susan laughs. "Sorry. Not quite clear on the limits of magic, myself."

"That's quite all right. But here." He reaches past a battered copy of _Synchronized Magicks_ to dig out _Going Batty: Ballycastle's Rise to Glory_. "I told you I supported Ballycastle, right? I didn't mean at football. This is our sport, wizard sport."

There are several people, in robes, pictured on the front of the book. That's not so unusual, but they're _flying_. One of them is staring at her.

"Don't mind William, he always had a bit of a temper," says Francis. "But now that I've told you about Quidditch, right, you can come to matches and all. Unless, unless you rather wouldn't." Unless you'd be jealous, he's trying to say, jealous that you are still mostly locked out of my world.

"I told you before," she just says, "I'm not a fan of spectator sport."

"Oh. All right, then."

He shows her his old Gobstones set and wizard chessboard; toys, but it's not like there's some great spell that needs casting. He shows her his telescope, which isn't a particularly magical one "but as long as you're here, might as well have a look at it. Too early to look through the thing, should have planned that better."

"It's all right."

But she is just being polite, he knows, and now he fears that even if she thought she wanted to be his friend, when it comes time to make plans other things will come up for her. Her quietness as he finishes the now-meager-seeming tour is no aid, and she is just stepping out of the flat ("I can ride the lift by myself, thanks") when he has the idea. "Su! Wait up!"

He races into his flat, prepares himself for the descent into the netherworld below his bed, then thinks better of it. A simple Summoning Charm does the trick.

Then he's back at the door. "This is for you. You can read all of it now, I don't have to censor anything."

_The Harmonies of the Cosmos: _she reads, _Muggle and Wizard Astronomy, by Francis Lupin_.

She flips to the index. Sure enough, there's Dr. Kuiper in the index.

"Thanks," she says, and smiles.

* * *

><p>It's difficult to read, although not in the same way books like Kuiper's have been difficult. This is a problem because she's completely the wrong person for it; he tosses out allusions to people she's never heard of, but has to spell out in detail what a university is. On the other hand, he does spell out what a spectroscope actually is.<p>

She reads bits and pieces; it's not really in chronological order, but doesn't seem to be organized around some central thesis either. It's just what he'd said—a description of how people do science, written for an audience of nonscientists.

Eventually, she starts making notes in the margins—questions she wants to ask about who the wizards he cites are. And she comes across some mistakes; Kuiper's an American citizen, sure, but he was born in the Netherlands. So she marks that down to tell him too, and keeps writing until a few margins are full of miniscule, half-legible scrawl. Then she draws arrows to the next pages over, and finally, when she's read all the way through and understood maybe half, she calls him back.

He has been keeping a more reasonable sleep schedule as he finishes the draft of book two, but is still surprised to hear her voice, still having written her friendship off to a certain extent after she did not make contact in the first day or two afterwards. "Hello? Yes."

"Hi. I was, um, well there were a couple things." No use bringing up stuff that can't be changed now. Or can it? "I read your book, it was interesting, I was actually hoping I could get together with you sometime and maybe you could explain some of the, erm." Does he have to be careful what he says on the phone? "Some of the..._authors_ you cite, that I'm not so familiar with."

"Oh! Right. My sort, yeah. Yeah, um, if you're really that interested, sure."

He comes over to her flat again ("I'm just a little paranoid about doing this in public. Remind me some time to tell you about what happened on the Underground...not today. It's a long story."), but this time seems more at ease. He's just a messy bachelor who'd rather not clean up his own place, for once.

"All right," he says. "I, erm, brought a couple of extra books. Just if I need to look something else, I honestly don't remember all of these details myself." _Magical or Muggle Martians? _asks one cover ("the answer, so far as we know, is "no""), while another simply displays a picture of the night sky ("it's enchanted, so that'll be what you can see _today_.")

Susan breathes in. "Okay. I guess I'll just take these in order—do you have a while?"

"Yes."

"Good, thank you." She scans the prologue. "What are stanenges? Some old type of magical telescope?"

"Er," he says. "That'd be Stonehenge to you."

"Stonehenge was built by _wizards_?"

"Course it was. They needed to do astronomy, hadn't exactly invented the telescope yet."

"How do you know?"

"There're old legends—we don't have any names or documents or anything. But there are ways of telling when strong magic, old magic, has been worked somewhere. I'm not very keen at detecting it, but there are strong wizards who are."

"And you trust them?"

"Might as well. They're strong wizards."

"So you're afraid of them."

"No, that's not it. They...understand magic, the deeper codes than I can get at. We have school, you know, there are various levels of learning, and even among people who have left school there are still people with deeper strengths."

Susan raises her eyebrows. "Okay. And this here, I'm not even going to try to pronounce it..."

"Oh, that's a South American site. I'm actually not sure if there were wizards involved, haven't done enough research yet. Maybe down the line."

"Okay. Um, I mean, this part really isn't addressed to me anyway...let's have a look at chapter one."

He's better than ten pages of endnotes. Within a few paragraphs she's found that neither Muggles ("that's what we call your sort") nor wizards had really believed the world was flat for many centuries, but that wizards were geographically isolated from each other too. It's possible to Apparate, magically vanish from one place and reappear somewhere else, and they really did have flying carpets as well as broomsticks, but the former are illegal in Britain and most medieval wizards wouldn't have seen much of the world. They flip through, him answering her questions and flying off on other tangents, until he runs across one of his mistakes. Susan doesn't point it out, but he reads it and sighs. "Good catch. Here." He points his wand at it and the letters rearrange into something more sensible.

"I was wondering if you could do that. Does that change all the other copies of the book, too?"

"No such luck. Although, did you like the book? Parts you couldn't understand aside?"

"It was all right. I mean, this isn't normally the sort of thing I go for."

"All right."

But she sees his ambivalence. "Why do you ask?"

"Er, nothing, it's just, it's too late to change this one for now but I'm almost done with my other book. If you wouldn't mind reading through it maybe you could catch some more of my mistakes. I'd pay you, of course."

"No, that's quite all right—so long as you explain to me everything I want to know about your lot."

"Of course! I was only afraid you'd be jealous."

"It's all still a bit strange to me but I can't really be bothered enough to be _jealous_. I don't want to go around with some fancy stick in my pocket thinking I could do all sorts of harm with it."

"There's more than—" he begins, but decides against pushing the issue. "That's to say, I'd quite appreciate it."

So there are fewer hours outside, buying food from stands, walking around London together, and more in the barren simplicity of Susan's flat and the cluttered overstimulus of Francis'. She points out when he's completely misinterpreted the beginning of World War II, he tells her that yes, witches actually got burned during the great burning of witches. "But they didn't get hurt."

She tells him that some Muggles really do believe in astrology. "_There's _a story for another time, and weren't you going to tell me something about the Underground?"

"Er. Yes. Later. Anyway, I'll redo that paragraph, thank you kindly." And he tells her about Arab-European cooperation during "your so-called Dark Ages, I really do need to find someone qualified to explain all your blasted history." She explains what Muggle schoolchildren learn about science, he shows her a picture he took of the atomic splitter below the "terran Quodpot pitch."

"American football field, Francis."

"Ah, quite. Fancy locks on that old dungeon, I tell you, but they never thought to protect against _Alohomora_."

"Aloha what?"

There are some sections neither of them are exactly capable of being sure they have right, mostly the technical specifics of modern Muggle laboratory equipments and what Francis had learned from the Pawnee, but he decrees it "loads better than it would have been," and she too is grateful for what he has explained to her. Even if she will only remember a fraction of it, and care about even less, it has at least shown her that he still has a grasp on some kind of culture. He still hasn't seen much Shakespeare and, beyond the extent that they treat astronomy, has little to say for classical Latin or Greek writers. But now he no longer seems hilariously ignorant but adept in talking about a parallel society; more powerful perhaps, more dangerous perhaps, but parallel nonetheless. So at once he is taking himself less seriously and all the while seeming something more serious, more deserving of her respect as an equal.

Every once in a while he will suggest, "Oh, let me just take you out there sometime, somewhere where it's clear enough you can see through the telescope for yourself. Not by magic or anything, we'd just ride somewhere." She always says it would be quite a pleasant idea, and means it, but they never follow up.

Francis sends off his draft to the publishers two days before Christmas. Susan is aghast. "You just let your _owl_ carry it? Supposing he got lost?"

"That lot wouldn't know what to do with the thing if I sent it by parcel post."

Sure enough, it returns on Boxing Day, although it needs to take shelter on a nearby balcony for the night since Francis is still at his family's house for the Christmas festivities. They seem more carefree than the previous ones for some reason he can't quite pin down, but he doesn't mind, belting along with the wireless for each carol and cheerfully admitting he hasn't the slightest what his _next _book will be about. Something that won't require plowing through so many insufferable philosophers, perhaps. Maybe he'll even write a book for Muggles! No, not about proper wizardry of course, just about their science and all. Nobody, least of all him, thinks to ask how on Earth he's going to come up with a biography that publishers might take seriously and no one cares; they are half-drunk on Christmas spirits. When he finally does get back home, Nuncius follows him in dutifully.

He still refrains from magicking a gift into Susan's flat, knowing she doesn't want him to use magic at her, but has no concern about meeting her a few days later. "The Christmastide lasts twelve days, you know."

"Tide?" she echoes. "Is the moon in the right house to exert some magic on the waters?"

"Oh no no no, Christmastide, I mean...oh, go on and open your present, then."

It's a tiny box, and she narrows her eyes as she opens it. When she finally sees the earrings, her face is differently perturbed. "Oh. Oh, they're quite...cute, thank you Francis."

"You _have_ got your ears pierced, haven't you? Only I've seen—"

"I got them pierced," she admits, "when I was younger. But then I stopped wearing earrings, it was about the time I came to the States. I suspect they've grown over now, I wouldn't be able to wear them. But they're a lovely gift, honestly—"

"No, no," he sighs. "I ought to have seen."

"It's all right."

He picks open his envelope, dawdling at it, knowing that to keep sulking would only spoil the festivities further. There's a note inside, which he reads with curiosity.

"You said you hadn't been to a Muggle cinema," she elaborates, "so I'm going to take you to one someday."

They decide not to waste much time with it; he's not writing, and there's vacation for the university, so they go soon after. Francis is quite well-behaved, not bursting into applause at the dramatic parts, but simply watching attentively. By the time it lets out, it's too late to talk about it, but they reconnect in the new year and he explains about wizarding entertainment. "We have theater, you—no, you don't _know_. I've been to one of your shows and it really was quite impressive how you do so much without magic, but of course we can manage so many more tricks. And that actress in the film, did she use cosmetics?"

"Eh? I suppose so, yes."

"Right. We have a few charms for that, so it's not so much about finding attractive actors—or _un_attractive ones, to play the evil witches—as really skillful actors."

Susan laughs. "You have evil witches, then? In your plays?"

"Oh, of course. And good ones too."

* * *

><p>Francis' editor does not seem to notice that he is not actually the first one to edit the text, but then, Francis reflects, that shouldn't be a surprise—plenty of mistakes made it to the published version of <em>The Harmonies of the Cosmos<em>. He almost works up the courage to ask one day if it isn't a general policy, for Muggles to review copies of books that draw heavily on their studies, but of course who would _send_ such to them?

So the process doesn't go any more quickly than it had with _Harmonies_. If anything, it's slower, because it took longer to send the thing out in the first place, and he's still procrastinating on coming up with a premise for number three.

"You ought to engage with some more of these philosophers." They're not dissident voices exactly because the wizarding world doesn't have that much to dissent against at the moment. But ten years after that Muggle war and the fight against Grindelwald ended, a few wizards are either growing nervous at the rapid development of Muggle science or dismissive of scientific authority, with parallel sentiment towards a few leading magical lights. "Haven't the Muggles got some equivalents?"

"It's an asymmetric setup, Jane. _We_ know what's going on in _their_ research but not the other way around, so they're not so paranoid yet. Give a few of them a decade or two." He shakes his head. "No. They're half-unreadable as it is."

"Then maybe someone ought to make them more digestible."

"Again, _no_. If they want to be obscure, far be it from me to help more people actually read them."

"What else are you going to write about? Do you want to go back to Oklahoma and do some more interviews there? Those were interesting."

"Those _were_ interesting," he admits. "I'll write to my friend there, see if there's a place for me to stay."

He honestly does mean to. It just seems a bit...presumptuous, maybe that's it, to sit down and write her a letter. _Dear Willow, I really learned quite a lot about astronomy when I was with you. Do you think your wizarding friends could fill me in on magical herbs of North America? Dear Willow, I might be in the States for a while doing research. I don't suppose you know anywhere for me to stay? Dear Willow, I'm so sorry I haven't written. Would you ever like to visit Europe sometime? I could get you in touch with people if you needed a place to stay. Dear Willow, How is John? How is your life? Dear John, You probably don't remember me. Well maybe you do, I lived with you for a month._

The weather is cold, and smoggy, but they go on outdoor excursions and cheap. He does not want to face the fact that, as far as work is concerned, he is almost stuck in a rut, so they try and play in the snow like overgrown children and do not succeed. Then they walk around and window-shop in Muggle London, which Susan seems to regard as a harmless pastime but Francis finds quite confusing. He thinks of Apparating her to Diagon Alley, to return the favor, but he is not sure whether she'd be able to see it.

"I think I ought to take up gardening," Francis idly mentions one evening. Susan can't tell how serious it is but, out of inspiration otherwise, seizes the chance to get him a window box for his birthday. The temperature leaps to twelve degrees, and he laughs. "Perhaps I might as well start now. Some other science to research, botany."

"Growing plants isn't _botany,_" says Susan. "Growing plants is growing plants. Botany is cutting plants up and looking at them with microscopes."

"Oh? Which one do you like better?"

"Neither. I grew up here in London, we didn't have a garden, but that doesn't mean I like cutting plants up." She pauses. "For a few months, when I was young, I lived in the countryside—but we didn't have a garden there, either."

"But, you'd say looking at the stars with your own telescope is astronomy, like Kuiper does?"

"Well, it's not like Kuiper does, but that doesn't mean it's not astronomy."

"Hmm," says Francis. "_This_ could be my next book. Muggle perceptions of sciences as practiced by specialists and nonspecialists, and, and, and whether there's a tendency to classify something as a science based on nonspecialist practitioners' demographic status..." He stops. "Oh dear. Now I'm starting to talk like one of those philosophers. This has really got to stop."

He considers Muggle publishers he might send something to, but the problem is that that would require the existence of a "something" worth sending off. Perhaps he can repackage his first two books, cut out all the magic, flesh out what was left and have something...too incoherent.

At last, he swallows his pride. _Dear Willow, I'm thinking of coming out to the States sometime soon. Maybe in the fall. If I found a place to stay—I don't want to impose on you and John again—do you think any of the wizarding community in and around Pawnee would be interested in being interviewed again? I'd probably be studying magical herbs and fungi. _He'd need that long to get up to speed on European herbs, wizard and Muggle alike. He hadn't exactly done poorly in Hogwarts Herbology, but astronomy had always been his real love. Better not to go in the summer, Su'd have less work and he might as well spend more time with her.

She can tell that he feels like he's accomplished something, but still looks gloomy. "Just, er, sent off a letter to one of my old magical contacts," he explains. "Might do some more research soon. Head somewhere with less fog!" And though it is a bright spring, she believes him.

He gets Muggle books from a large Muggle library, and magical books from an elite lending library haunted by purebloods and oversized, vaguely judgmental portraits. The books are quite old and have little to say about the modern practice of Herbology, so he writes to Olhouser who, in miniscule cursive, agrees that he can come to search through the Hogwarts library.

Francis Apparates to Hogsmeade and treks from there to the castle; he knows that one can appear closer to the school grounds, but he's not familiar enough with those particular areas to feel comfortable trying to go directly there. He arrives without incident, though, avoiding the glances of curious students as he arrives in the library. Most of the books having to do with Herbology, whether it's parts of a mushroom or how to de-gnome ones' garden, are in the same section, and he allows himself a smile at that. He can't check anything out, but he winds up with a scroll full of ideas, and a few titles he'll probably break down and purchase.

As he is leaving, a distant voice calls "Is that Francis Lupin?"

"Hullo?" he starts, and turns around. "Professor Lawrence!"

"So good to see you!" grins the old man, leaning on a cane in the shape of a telescope. "If I'd have known you were coming I'd have put in a good word for you with Dippet."

"Dippet? I just came to use the library."

"Oh dear, I'm going dim in my old age. Thought you were here for an interview."

"An interview? Professor, are you retiring?"

"I know it must seem strange to you children, but we professors are not as a class indefinitely old. I'm getting older still day by day, and I think spending some more time at home would be the best for what's left of my health."

"Oh." Francis nervously rushes to fill the silence. "I, I hope you have a pleasant retirement."

"Ohoho, as do I. So you really hadn't heard? I'm sure there's still time to schedule an interview."

"I..." He could stay in England. But he'd be living in the castle nine months out of the year. Or _did _the faculty have homes elsewhere? "I'm not sure I'd be a great teacher. If I had to handle everyone from seventh year N. E. W. T. students to first-years who don't want to be there..."

"You'd remember that you had the former to look forward to when you were dealing with the latter," winks Lawrence. "Trust me." He fumbles with a long pocket-watch. "I suppose I'd better get to class. At my age it's a chore, what fool thought to hold classes at the top of a bloody tower? But do send me an owl, let me know how you've been, and talk to Dippet—I think once you started teaching you'll find you're quite good at it."

And he staggers off, leaning heavily on the cane for each step. Francis, too, is slow to depart.

When he gets back to the flat, he deposits the scrolls of notes on his floor, all thought of herbs aside. An owl, yes, surely. He didn't know it was really a respectable thing to owl one's own professors; Lawrence's family, as far as he knew, had a lot of Muggle relatives, and they didn't really run in the same circles.

Dear Professor Lawrence, he eventually writes,

I'm very glad I ran into you. Sorry for not writing, if I'd known you wanted to keep in touch more I'd have owled before.

My second book will be out soon, it's a more general discussion of magic and Muggle science. I was at Hogwarts to gather material for a third, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to that, particularly if I take your job. Merlin that's a weird mental image. But I suppose one that hasn't scared off the other candidates.

I've been back to the states once since I sent you a copy of _Harmonies._ But I'm learning a lot about Muggle London; the Uderground has been fun and I've been to some excellent concerts.

Hope you're well.

Sincerely,

Francis Lupin

It's a tiny little letter and he feels embarrassed that he can't add more. What's new with him? Some more of his cousins have more children, but Lawrence probably doesn't care. He spends a lot of time just talking to Susan, but Lawrence doesn't know her.

"I'm a _writer_, Nuncius," he sighs. The owl moans as Francis approaches his cage.

He stops one step away from it. "No. It's more efficient to send two letters to Hogwarts in one trip."

* * *

><p>After finishing both of his books, Susan has borrowed some of the books he merely owns and makes annotations on separate sheets of paper. She likes finding mistakes in purported non-fiction, but the most amusing books to her are wizard novels.<p>

"Why would you write more novels? We Muggles come up with plenty."

"We like appreciating some of the allusions. And you Muggles get all the facts about magic wrong."

"That's because they're not facts for us."

"Facts are facts, they don't belong to anybody."

Somehow they wind up making a bet; she'll read ten wizard novels and he'll read seven Muggle ones, the ones they think best represent the other culture correctly, and whoever finds the most mistakes will have to take the other one out to dinner. He might have cheated, she realizes as she reads the first, and picked some that had no mention of Muggles at all, but so far there have been a few, all benign. She insisted on having him read fewer, since many wizards actually did live in the Muggle world, but he accepted with an arrogant smile saying seven would be quite enough. Besides, she was having enough trouble coming up with even that few fantasies to recommend.

* * *

><p>"Glad you could make it in," says Dippet. Francis can't tell if he's being dismissive.<p>

"Thank you, sir."

"Well, I might as well ask. Why do you want to be a teacher?"

"I think it's important work, sir. It was Professor Lawrence who helped steer me on the path to being a writer, and I think students need important influences like his in their lives."

"Yes, why don't we talk about your book. You've written just the one?"

"My second will be published in May."

"Oh? Very good. And what would you say you've learned from the process? Not about astronomy as a discipline, but about work."

"I've realized the importance of setting my own deadlines and holding to them. When at school we had essay due dates and N. E. W. T. standards, but as an independent writer I need to set my own schedule. I'd like to think I've come a long way but I suppose there are more ways I can improve."

"I see. Now, do you have any experience working with young children?"

"No, sir, not since I left school at any rate."

"Very well. If I may just return to what you had previously said; you appreciated Professor Lawrence because he steered you into becoming a writer?"

"Yes, sir."

"And do you think that was a good decision? On his part and yours?"

"Yes."

"You like being a writer?"

"I—yes."

"But you now want to leave that and become a teacher?"

"Um. Yes, sir, I do. I don't, I don't think either of us imagined that situation lasting indefinitely."

"Very well. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Ah, yes sir. Where do the faculty live?"

"Excuse me?"

"The hogwarts faculty. Do you live here in the castle?"

"Yes, we do. It's not required, and in the past some professors have lived elsewhere, but at the moment we're all residential."

"Very well," says Francis. "that makes sense. Only I'd never seen professors' spouses and children here, so I don't think it really makes sense to expect them to know how to deal with young children."

Dippet is speechless. "That will be quite all, Mr. Lupin. Good day."

* * *

><p>The letter comes written in unfamiliar handwriting. Dippet's? He'd said that they might not make the final decision until July.<p>

_Dear Francis_, it reads, _How good to hear from you again. You can be sure I have put in a good word to Dippet on your behalf._

This isn't Professor Lawrence's handwriting. He skims to the end, trying to find out why he wouldn't be writing his own letter. Nothing leaps out; are Lawrence's faculties really so diminished?

Part of him doesn't want to write back. Lawrence was always a proud man, and to send him a letter he is too weak to respond to in his own hand seems a bit cold. And yet, he sees once he reads it through, the phrasing is Lawrence's. He must have dictated it. Maybe he ought to write back and give the old professor something to take his mind off things.

Ever since making up his mind that he has absolutely no chance of getting Lawrence's job Francis has been in inexplicably high spirits. Willow does write back, saying she and some others would be glad to be interviewed but that she doesn't know any herb experts. She recommends an acquaintance in New Mexico (Francis has to go squint at a map to convince himself no such country exists, then rustle up an atlas).

He procrastinates on this, too, urging Susan to come up with her list of Muggle books for the bet. He feels like he's in just the right mood to read something fanciful. But maybe she is procrastinating too.

Then his landlord knocks on his door.

"Francis Lupin? There's a man here to see you in the lobby."

"Is something wrong with the doorbell?"

"To our knowledge no, but he's having...great difficulty employing the system."

Francis scowls. Some ministry official come for him? "I'll be right down."

Dashing back into his flat, he grabs his wand and tucks it under his clothing, then descends the lift. There, standing baffled in the lobby, is Headmaster Armando Dippet.

"Old teacher of mine," Francis explains with a weak smile. "not used to these systems. Headmaster, can I help you?"

"You can," says Dippet gravely, "and Lawrence, and his students. Can we go up to your rooms?"

"Of course." Francis leads (a highly impressed) Dippet up the lift, then into his flat.

"Lawrence has taken ill—iller than before—"Dippet says, "and certain—incidents—suggest that he would not be not the most, ah, inspired choice to continue grading even for the remainder of the year. Thus, as part of our application process, we're inviting potential candidates to grade essays. We'd pay you, of course, and you can opt out with no adverse effect on your application should it interfere with your, ah..." Dippet glances around the flat, the books strewn everywhere, and takes a deep sniff, "professional obligations."

"I'll do it," he says without hesitation.

"Excellent." Dippet produces a stack of papers from his briefcase. "Correct these star charts and bring them back by Monday. You can leave them with myself, Lawrence if you see him, or Miss Sharon Goldstein."

"And you'll send me other things to grade?"

"Yes. Have no fear, I can find my way back here. This flat is quite...distinctive."

"Thank you, Headmaster."

The star charts are surprisingly easy to correct; Dippet hadn't asked him to assign grades. The next day, he's sent a pile of second-year essays to read through. _Offer them advice on writing structure as well as factual ability_. He's a writer, after all, he should be able to do this.

Second-years, it turns out, are quite often slow.

One evening he has to cancel dinner plans with Su to finish reading a pile of sixth-year reports. He is furious at first, but by the time he climbs into bed very early the next morning the anger has transformed into some kind of pride. He and Su are peers now, they're both on a school schedule. Like kids, he supposes, but there are worse fates.

He does not notice Lawrence inside Hogwarts, but Dippet never invites him to actually teach classes. He can't tell whether Lawrence is still handling those, or whether someone else (who _is _Sharon Goldstein? He's never met her, either) has taken over, but simply hands his papers back to Dippet.

As April ends, he is asked to give his estimates of letter grades to some of the essays. Dippet tells him those will not necessarily be the students' _actual_ grades, but he wants to judge how well Francis can evaluate writing skill and knowledge of astronomy. In Francis' own opinion, he's a rather adept judge. Astronomy essays are not poetry, and there aren't very many ways to write a decent one. He can tell a good essay from bad, but none really rise above the others. Is he unlike Lawrence, not skilled enough to note true O work? Or was he simply a particularly stellar student in _his _day?

No one answers. He cannot tell who is actually giving the students grades.

Then he receives the package in the mail; the first copy of _What's All The Racket? Muggle Science and Magic_. He immediately buys up three more and mails one of them to his parents. He gives one to Susan, and asks Dippet to give the third to Lawrence when he sees him next.

It's a bit of a shock, the reminder that somehow he actually cranked two books out, even as he scans Herbology books and takes notes in the lulls between assignments and when Susan's at work. He has lots of notes, if no thesis, and no direction. Oklahoma and New Mexico seem equally far away, and until he hears back from Dippet—which might not be for another few months—he can't plan anything.

Susan sees that he's changed, the last few months, or at least sees the uncertainty about his future take control of his face. On the several occasions she's asked him—as a curious, proud, friend—what adventures he might be heading on next, he is withdrawn and seems unable to enjoy anything. Yet redirect the conversation towards something banal, which she usually does under those circumstances, and he is withdrawn in a happier way, shy but excited. Maybe he's craving those first few days of being the awkward foreigner near the worldly compatriot, she can't tell. Yet the way his eyes seize upon her with a new force every moment they are together is not the same, and one day when he doesn't (he has been working late grading finals), she realizes she does not want to go back to how things were.

* * *

><p>The owl at Francis' window is one of the largest he's seen, with ridiculously long, curly hair that makes it look more like some small child's overfed and poorly brushed pet than a messenger animal. But there it is, a small envelope in tow.<p>

Dear Francis,

I trust that your astronomical knowledge is accurate (if not, I shall be sore disappointed, and ask you not to intrude upon my assumption), and I know that your writing skill is outstanding. Thus please forgive me for not providing a critical review of your work.

Instead I want to provide a qualifier to my advice of a decade previous. You are adroit enough to use words and language well, and I reaffirm my hope that you continue to do so. However, do not be tempted to write everything as soon as you can. Do not assume that everything that happens must be explained in the moment by your shaking quill.

Remember that we call the planets Fortuna and Infortuna, Major and Minor, greater and lesser. Not the greatest, nor the least of our fortunes and misfortunes, so long as we spin about this sun.

You note in your first book that many Muggles used to think the stars were far closer to the Earth than is actually the case, with the last of the Heavens in the farthest sphere. Remember also that the stars are really quite distant, but the Singular is around us in every direction.

Best in your future endeavors,

Professor Lawrence.

A third handwriting, not his normal style nor the previous cursive. Someone else is writing this down for Lawrence—maybe it was a student last time, and this one is...a niece or grandniece? (Francis doesn't know any men who write that neatly.) Or a St. Mungo's Healer?

Impulsively, Francis Apparates to Purge and Dowse and climbs into the hospital. The warlock at the front desk tells him that Lawrence is indeed there, on the second floor, and Francis quickly climbs up to visit. But a Healer making the rounds intercepts him outside Lawrence's room. "The professor is sleeping, I wouldn't interrupt him now."

"All right. How is he?"

"He's old."

"That's not an answer!"

"Yes it is."

Scowling, Francis returns to his flat in a funk and copies down notes about herbs. When he wakes up the next morning, he has a hard time reading what he'd written.

He pores over Lawrence's letter again. Greater and lesser fortune? The Ptolemaic solar system? They were all things he'd talked about in class, but why Lawrence should feel the need to bring them up...

Part of him wants to Apparate and try to visit Lawrence again, yet another part fears to. He spends a long day reading and underlining parts of an Herbology book he'd bought after seeing some ideas in Hogwarts, taking a break at lunchtime to tend to his own window box. He is a slightly better gardener than he is a cook, but not by much, and has invited Susan over to see if she can help him any with Muggle flowers. (He has planned a visit to Kenneth, his old friend's, farm to see if he would possibly be willing to explain some wizarding Herbology, but Kenneth always had a way of being haughty without really meaning to, and Francis is less than optimistic.)

"This is stupid," he sighs as Susan reaches for the watering can.

"What?"

"You shouldn't be here, doing this for me. I, I wanted to be able to do it myself."

"I got you this box, didn't I? Ought to make sure it's taken care of properly."

"No, _I_ ought to, as it's mine."

"Fair enough, then, I'll just be going."

"No, I mean, you can—er, if you want to go, go ahead."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"I don't know."

"You don't care if I stick around or not?"

"No, no, I want you to, it's just that I can't tell what you want."

Susan rolls her eyes. "Water your own plants if it means that much to you."

Francis stomps over to the windowsill, with a furious _Aguamenti_ refilling the can. He pours it out nervously, a bit here and a bit there, and there's a lot left. A brief _Evanesco_ takes care of a few weeds, yet he finds this unsatisfying.

"Well," he says, sitting down opposite her. "Don't suppose you brought a book list over?"

"Not yet. You'll have fewer to read than me, anyway, we'll get done around the same time."

"All right. What're you working on now?"

"_The Two Roses_. But I don't know enough about what life would've been like that long ago to know if she got the Muggle details right."

Francis shrugs. "And I'm not too sure how it would've been for wizards, either."

She brings out a deck of cards and they get to playing; it's a fun way to spend time that isn't reflecting on a shared past or making Francis think about his future. They were pleasantly surprised to find that many of their favorite games were quite similar, just going by different names, and they settled in for a round of what Susan called "golf" and Francis called "keystone"—the rules weren't quite the same, but they'd come to a compromise.

She wins four games out of seven; they go more slowly than she expected, and it is late by the time they finish.

"I can Apparate you over to your flat," he suggests.

"I'm fine on my own."

"All right."

She smiles, seeing him stare intently at the window. "Too cloudy for any stargazing tonight."

""m not stargazing," he mutters without thinking.

"What're you doing, then?"

"Watching for owls."

"About the school job? Would they write to you at this hour?"

"They might not, but owls need some time to get here."

"They can arrive in the morning, there's no rush. Or is there someone else you're waiting to hear from?"

"I...it's, no, there's someone I'm waiting to _not_ hear from."

Susan laughs dryly. "Oh, very good. Already pondering what you're going to say in your lack of reply?"

"No," he says tersely.

"I say, no, that's not it. You can't be _waiting_ to _not_ hear from someone."

"Yes I can. I'm waiting to not hear from them right now."

"No you're not. You're not hearing from them right now. This thing, what you're doing right now, not hearing from them, that's what you _would_ wait for. But you're not waiting. If you _did_ hear from them, then, then I suppose it'd be too late."

"Yes," he supposes, smiling. "Yes, that's right. But—but it's getting late right _now_. You'd better get home."

_Someone he's waiting to not hear from. _Has he given up on her? "Is this about the bet?"

"No!" And his voice is stricken, as if offended at the thought he might be insulting her, or—she realizes moments later—at the thought she is not taking him seriously enough.

"Francis, what's wrong?"

"My old professor," he blurts. "He's sick, I'm worried about him, he can't even write any more, and he sent me this note—that is to say, I'm afraid—there's some business, some business I have to be about—but I don't want to—if he's going to, not going to—" He's afraid he will break down, but no tears come; instead, his teeth start chattering. He angrily points his wand at his jaw to quiet himself.

Susan shakes her head; she has no time to put up with uncontrolled sentimentality. And the way he's been procrastinating..."There's some business you have to be about."

"Ah. Yes. Yes there is."

"About taking over his job."

"No."

"No?"

"It isn't _business_, so far as money goes, it's just something I ought to get around to."

"And so you're waiting to hear from him?"

"No, I'm waiting _not _to hear from the Healers at St. Mungo's—that's the hospital where he's at."

"What's it got to do with them then?"

"Nothing."

"What's it got to do with _anything_?"

"It's, er. If I get this, this business of mine, all taken care of properly, it might be a very, very pleasant thing for me. Possibly. But if, if there are—complications—for Professor Lawrence—it'd be a bit tacky, I feel, to be in a good mood if things go wrong."

"When you say things going wrong? Is he having some surgery?"

"No, I mean if he, er. Dies."

Francis has half a mind to try and charm his _knees_ into silence, now, but Susan treats it as coolly as anything. "If he dies. Then he's hardly going to be greatly concerned about how your business goes, is he?"

"Er, no, but."

"And it hasn't got anything to do with you taking over his job, has it?"

"No."

"Then it's no skin off his back. You might as well go ahead with whatever needs doing, it's all the same to _him _if he dies."

Others might find it callous, but her voice stirs him to life. "Right. Right, that makes...sense. I'll deal with it..."

"Now?"

"Tomorrow. You get yourself home."

"I have a bit of a trip back. You don't, stay around and deal with it tonight if it's so important to you."

"I, er, can't."

They look at each other for a long time, neither breaking off the gaze, until Francis repeats "Go on, then."

"Right."

"Er, Susan?"

"Yes?"

"Want to drop by tomorrow, after work? Bring your cards, we can play Stacks or something."

"Sure."

* * *

><p>He is too nervous to accomplish much as far as work goes the next day despite keeping the shades closed. (Even without the Hogwarts schedule to keep him in line he has still maintained a semi-normal sleep schedule.) At last, he orders in some food, tries to make the flat semi-presentable, and waits.<p>

He asks her about her day first—it's been quiet with classes out—but she will have none of it. "And your business? How'd that go?"

"Uh. Well."

"Well? That's good. Any, any word from your professor? Or about the job?"

He shakes his head. "Not yet."

They eat a nervous dinner, light but nutritious, and Susan starts shuffling cards.

"Er. Susan?"

"Yes?"

"Hear me out on this, I might go a bit...stilted on you." He takes a deep breath. "Er. So. I've, I've been doing a lot of thinking, about what I want to do next. In life. And maybe I'll get the job at Hogwarts, which would mean I might be teaching nine months out of the year. And I might _live _inside the castle, it's a magical thing, although maybe I wouldn't have to. Or maybe they'd turn me down, in which case, I'd probably spend a few months in America in the fall, researching, and then come back here to write."

She opens her mouth to reply, but he shakes his head. "No. I've been worried about some of these things, for reasons I hadn't quite got a handle on until pretty recently. And, and I think I know why. I'm afraid of being cut off from you for too long, going somewhere you can't be a part of. You're my best friend, and, _and_ I'm not sure what. I...after we sort of left each other, stopped being friends, for a while, I went around and dated other women. Witches. And, and they were all nice, but none of them really would have worked in the long run.

There was a time when I sort of took for granted that someday I would get married and have children, and now that I've tried to look for potential, uh, people I've fallen in love with...I won't be all that disappointed if that never happens to me, but I don't really think I want to date anybody else either. I...I'm not sure if it's the same kind of thing...infatuation I guess you'd call it. I'm not infatuated with you like I have been with other people, but I care about you very deeply and, and, and I don't want to plan out my future alone. I want you to be part of it, if you want to, and—however it would _work_."

Susan raises her eyebrows, breathing slowly. "Well.

Give me a moment to think about that. I'm not a writer so I might not be very erudite on the fly." They both laugh nervously. "I care about you, too, very much. And...and for a while, that _annoyed _me. That you didn't see me the same way. That everyone I fell for was so foolish. That, once we'd started being friends again, I couldn't make myself feel for you just the same things I felt about other friends. That you'd been keeping a secret from me." Now it is her turn to stop him from interrupting. "But in spite of myself, I still...yes, it's not what I've ever felt for anyone else before, but I suppose, it _is _love in a sense."

"It is?"

"I think so. For me at least."

"I...suppose so too, yes."

"So," she says, carefully, using logic. "I think we have about three options.

We can keep doing what we're doing. Being friends. You could try and get a flat outside the school if you wanted to live near me. Or go off to America for a few months, that's fine with me.

Or we could stay friends, but realize that maybe we'll see other people who...we are infatuated with, someday, and recognize that we might date and get married to them."

"But you thought we were dating, back when I didn't?"

"Yes."

"And you still felt the same way about me, later?"

"Yes," she admits, "but I could...get past that, if you found someone else."

"You said there were "about three" choices? Are there any more?"

"Well," says Susan, "we could get married to each other."

"We could."

"We could."

"We _could_," he repeats, "now that I've told you about magic, and all, there wouldn't be any _other_ hoops to jump through. Officially. You'd have to deal with having magical in-laws. And if we had children, they'd likely be magical too."

"But if I was willing to put up with all that? You'd want to get married to me?"

"Er. Yes. I think so."

"Let's get married, then."

"Brilliant."

Susan laughs. "Er. This was what your "business" was all about, then?"

"Er. Yes."

Then somehow they're kissing. Both of them are pleasantly surprised to find that the other is quite a good kisser. Both of them are rather curious about when the other got the experience. Neither of them decide to ask.

A letter from St. Mungo's arrives at Francis' flat early the next morning.

* * *

><p>Francis attends the funeral, partly out of friendship and partly because Dippet will probably be there and he wants to make a good impression. A fair number of students at N. E. W. T. level are there, and a gaggle of relations; several Continental wizards come over to pay their respects. The only Muggles there are Lawrence's family, although they have appropriated a Muggle building. (Wizard architecture, at least in England, tends towards either the grandiose or the utilitarian, but few small buildings are truly set apart from their others.) He is glad he did not bring Susan, and goes home after mingling with the professors just long enough to show them that he is a dutiful applicant.<p>

He still doesn't get the job, but doesn't mind too much; he has dug in to his Herbology research with a new energy. It will just be one book, and then there will be more after that.

Kenneth is glad to see him again, and delights in showing him every aspect of his farm. He throws around lots of jargon, though Francis, knowing Kenneth, tunes out half of it and pledges to double-check every term he doesn't ignore. When they're forty-five minutes in and are barely out of Kenneth's house yet, Francis gives up thinking of it as anything more than a reunion with an old friend, and is thus pleasantly surprised to actually see how one might harvest fluxweed juice; book diagrams do not do it justice.

He and Susan go shopping for houses, or flats, or something. "How many bedrooms should we have, do you think?"

"Well, I took it we'd be sharing the one."

"Er. Right. That's what I'd quite planned on, yes. But, er, my study is meant to be a second bedroom, I think. Not that I'd have to have one, in a new place, but it is. And if we wanted to have children, er,"

"We'd want three."

"Yes."

They knew a lot about each other from conversations before getting engaged; it's just that they hadn't said it with an eye towards marriage. They'd both said that they wanted to have children, but at the time it seemed like coincidence, not compatibility.

"Well, let's look about for three then, with both of us paying rent it'll work out."

"Er. You'll keep your job?"

"...yes?"

"Good. Good. That's what I'd imagined! I, just, we'd never had this conversation."

Susan laughs. "Better late than never."

"It's more important we stay by campus, I can go pretty much everywhere. Although, I could Apparate you there and back if we found a good—"

"I'm fine on my own."

They find a flat in Blackfriars; it's on the third floor, so less hiking or elevators. The living room isn't that large, but Francis says he'll keep some of his books in his study. "Now with you living with me I'll _have _to keep my things in some kind of order."

"Or you'll make me clean it all up."

"I'd never! My Gobstones will explode if you handle them the wrong way, I've got to do it myself."

Susan shakes her head. "I don't suppose there are any other warnings you want to give me now?"

"Nah," he says. "I don't want to blow it now."

* * *

><p>"I think we ought to meet each other's families," he notes one day. Speaking carefully; he got things off to a horrible start by mentioning her father years ago, but she <em>has<em> mentioned siblings.

"I'll go to visit yours," she said. "Oh, we're to be married, I ought to tell you these things, hadn't I? All mine are dead. Well, there are a few aunts and uncles, but I don't visit them."

He wonders how many people she has told this to in one go, so matter-of-factly. Trying to match her unemotion, he says, "All right, well, I shan't visit them either. But you can come and see mine if you'd like."

"Will they judge you? For marrying me?"

"Oh, a _bit_, but they'll more find it strange than anything. There are a few brutes, wizards that is, who really wouldn't tolerate Muggles if they had their way, but they're all fools—there're far more of you than us anyway. Anyway, my family will be a bit surprised at first, but they'll get over it."

This proves much to be the case. Francis almost considers not telling his parents that she's a Muggle, but decides against that. When he first breaks the news to them, their greatest concern is that his father doesn't remember having heard of her and his mother knew her name as only a friend, not a potential wife, and after the whirlwind of the previous summer she is a bit skeptical of his romantic indecision. He reassures them that, in some way, he's really loved her for years, and they let him be.

She meets them, and a whole gaggle of other relations, at the christening of the son of one of Francis' cousins, Athena Caruso. Baby Martin is very fussy throughout the whole process, which amuses some of Francis' aunts (and, for that matter, Susan). But by the time of the reception, his fussing has returned to what Athena and Ezekiel claim are normal levels. (Francis is a bit unnerved by this.)

Susan is pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, having received a somewhat biased view of wizarding cooking standards. (Athena's parents _do_ have a house-elf; Odd Edd is by this time deceased.) As far as she can tell, Francis is happy, and is animated when telling others about his forthcoming visit to America. They've agreed that they'll marry in December, when he comes back. They do not spend much time together at the reception, however, as she is being introduced to the whirl of relatives. There are little cousins; Amos, Flora, Perseus, and a gaggle of others that get passed around (two of whom she mistakes for Martin). Then there are the adults. Some of them take the opportunity to meet a real live Muggle and ask everything they've always wanted to know about the Muggle world. After explaining for the fifth time that yes, they did have broomsticks, but that they did not fly on them, she had half a mind to say that she was getting _married _to Francis and would be at many successive Lupin family gatherings so that they could ask then. She decided against this, however, fearing they'd remember.

None of them seem too judgmental about her and Francis' relationship, nor dismissive of Muggles as a class. If anything, a few of them are just pitying all the glories she'll miss out on. She has half a mind, as dusk hits, to explode at Aunt Alyssum that she has seen _real_ magic. _Deep_ magic, deeper than anything they'd ever do.

She _wants_ to, wants to get the upper hand, and that's what convinces her she has seen and known no such thing. It couldn't be that easy, that she'd just happen to have seen something deep enough to shut her up. No, she tells herself. Despite all of Francis' world, _that_ is impossible.

"I've been thinking," he says that night. "About our wedding. Should we have one of the Ministry officials preside, or would you like a Muggle Speakable to do it?"

"A Muggle what?"

"A Speakable."

"I don't think we have any of those."

"Ooh, I'm quite sure you do, you just must have some other word for them. Right, well, so we have this Department of Mysteries, it's top-secret things that normal folks can't know about. And the people who work there are the _Un_speakables; they do the messing about with the deep magics. That's what they've always been called, even before there was a proper Ministry. So then the people who...who aren't all top-secret, but still can sort of feel the oldest magic, are the Speakables. Really, _really _strong magic leaves...echoes, sort of, that they can sort of make shown. I dunno the right words for it. It's mostly sound and light, obviously, but they do ceremonies like christenings and Gratiara, weddings and funerals and that."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, and I don't think we have them."

"Oh sure you do. The _deep _magic is strong enough, even Muggles can see it."

"I'm a Muggle, and I can see your normal magic."

"That's just because we love each other."

"What?"

"I couldn't have got the permission from the Ministry to show it to you unless I really trusted you. I had to write them a letter, explaining that we really cared about each other."

"But that was well before we got engaged."

"It's still love. I just didn't know it at the time."

"Let's just get the other sort of official."

"All right." It is dark, and she cannot see his face.

* * *

><p>"I'll miss you," she admits, "but, I mean, not like I was some stupid little girl in love."<p>

"There is that," he says. "I'll try and write, although I'm not sure how intercontinental owling works." He is leaving Nuncius with her, and has reassured her that he will fend for himself if the window is left open.

"Take care. I'd ask you to give my best to my friends in Chicago except that you're not going anywhere near there really and I'm not close to any of them."

"Right. Thanks." At least he wouldn't have to worry about her taking it too poorly.

He sleeps on the plane, having packed very carefully so he could get his magical items on board without incident. He cannot sleep on the connecting flight, and almost throws up on the drive from the airport out to Kinłitsosinil.

"You sure this is the place?" says the driver.

"Think so." Francis nervously gives him a large tip. "Wait up a bit, let me make sure..."

He's skeptical at first when the man claiming to be Albert answers the door, looking much older than he'd expected, but he quickly proves to know Willow. Francis quickly runs to tell the driver he's free to go, and a chuckling Albert invites him in for dinner.

Albert turns out to be merely in his sixties. He reminds Francis of the deal they set up; in return for helping out with gardening as needs require (Albert is willing to take a gamble on this, in spite of Francis' warnings) and teaching Latin spells to interested students, he can stay with him and learn about American herblore. It sounded good at the time, but Francis had not factored in that most actual students would be away at school, and that most of the wizards near Kinłitsosinil don't get their own wands until they're old enough for _shiyaa_. He never gets a chance to see this process, but it apparently involves finding the right tree and then somehow working the core into an appropriate branch. The resulting wand is less of a honed stick and bears more resemblance to the original tree.

The upshot of it all is that the people he's actually teaching are, rather than young children, closer to his own age, and he feels a little uncomfortable about having some much stronger wizards practice Summoning Charms. Perhaps because of the wand shape, or because he's a lousy teacher, many of them have trouble with _Accio, Evanesco_,and many other charms as well as Transfiguration spells that require casting on one specific object. On the other hand, they prove quite adept at Conjuring and spells applied to themselves; Maria successfully Disillusions herself on the first go and spends the rest of one afternoon giving advice to others.

He asks them about herblore just as much as Albert, much to their confusion; Albert's the one he'd come to see, isn't he? At first they claim not to be experts, but Samuel at least is a good cook, and invites Francis to try emulating a recipe he found in _Mystical Maizes_. (Francis politely declines.)

But all that is what he wants to see too; how experts and normal wizards use herbs. Which, when he says it that way, makes him feel uncertain; couldn't he do _that_ closer to home?

But maybe that's just for proper Herbologists, not lazy stargazers. In any rate, he watches Albert Split the Pine Lichen, first grinding it into a green powder and then muttering some incantation as he sifts it through the crook of his wand. (Albert's wand is so round he wears it around his wrist. "My Muggle friends think I have keen taste in jewelry. Heheheh!")

Somehow, the lichen splits into two different powders. "This part you'll use as fertilizer—well, not you, you'll be gone—but this one here makes a good salve." Keeping up with Albert requires more potion-making ability than Francis thinks he possesses, so he spends most of his time taking copious notes and not looking up.

He writes Susan a short note, mostly complaining about the heat. There's an owl office, and he is told that, just as he did, the letter will make connecting flights to the coast where a transcontinental Portkey is set up. It still seems a bit risky, but he hasn't got anything to lose.

His students press him for more powerful spells. He'd like to comply, but he's not a very gifted spellcaster all told. After a while, only a few keep coming. A bit embarrassed, Francis asks Albert if there's anything else he should do.

"If you're that desperate, you can cook dinner tonight. See if I've taught you anything."

Francis suggests that his students look into Unplottability Theory.

The weeks pass quickly for Susan, despite not having Francis to spend them with; excited for the coming winter, she makes quick work of the books he recommended for the bet. The eighth, _Minister for Mayhem_, is rather clever even if she doesn't know what it's satirizing.

On a whim, she addresses a short letter to "Mr. and Mrs. Lupin." Nuncius seems very excited to have a job to do and eagerly takes off with his assignment. Sure enough, a few days later Mrs. Lupin writes back effusively, apologizing for the fact that they do not have any other novels by Kingnil, and asking if she's heard from Francis. She is reluctant to reply with the news that yes, she has in fact, but he didn't write you, but even more reluctant to lie. So she keeps Nuncius in his cage. Francis, in kind, realizes that he's unlikely to get a response from Susan, and feels it would be tacky to write again when there's just a few more weeks now.

It's dry in New Mexico, which he'd sort of expected, but didn't count on how good a view of the stars he'd have. Towards the end of his visit, he gives up on herbs and starts asking his students about astronomy. Maria is disappointed, having expected a lesson in magic they needed starlight to perform, but Joe points out a constellation or two.

"You wanna learn about the stars, eh?" cackles Albert.

"Anything you know about them would be wonderful."

"I'm just an old gardener, me. But," he grins, "I know a proper genius up Pawnee way."

Francis laughs. "Thanks, Albert."

He decides he ought to leave them some kind of gift, but doesn't know his way around well enough to buy anything very nice. Instead he leaves his old copy of _Synchronized Magicks_ with Albert. "Some of the, er, students wanted to learn more high-powered spells. I'd try teach them myself but I'm not too familiar with these, you'd need several people all working together to figure it out. Maybe you can teach each other?"

Albert laughs. "We'll see what we can do."

He tries writing on the planes back, but still doesn't know what the book will exactly be about. He can try just reprising the structure of _Harmonies_, yes, but that might get boring. Still, it's a thought...of course, he can't exactly get it out to read on the plane. Unless he Transfigures the cover, of course, but he can't do _that_ either. So, mostly, he sleeps.

He gets back early, British time, rather jet-lagged, and curls up in his flat, too tired to do anything productive but having got too much sleep to go to sleep. Does Susan remember he's due back in today? Nervous, he telephones her in the early evening.

"Hello?"

"Hello! Susan!"

"Oh, hello! Everything go well?"

"Yes. I think. Got a lot of information."

"Wonderful. Nuncius is holding up."

"Brilliant. Er, want to have dinner?"

"Already have, sorry."

"Oh. All right. Maybe Wednesday? We don't have a lot of time before the wedding, do we?"

"Not that much. But you said you set everything up?"

"Yeah. Pretty much. Just a few loose ends."

She is not as excited about the wedding as she might have once expected. There was a time in her life when she thought a wedding would be just some overblown party, a time when it seemed the end of a thrilling era of flirtation, a time when it would be some glorious, thrilling day—and flashes, almost, the memory of a memory of a memory of thinking it might be some solemn, stately affair. But she can hear her husband's voice again, and that's a rather pleasant thing.

They _do_ meet on Wednesday, by which time he's had his photographs developed. "They ought to move, you know, but most of them are just pictures of plants for my notes. Let's see...oh, here's Samuel, there were a few students who wanted to learn Latin spells."

"You can just learn spells?"

"Er, wizarding students. Most of us in Europe use Latin—although I think the Basques or Hungarians or some lark have a few local spells, and I think that's what they've got in Salem too, but there are lots more around the world who don't learn our spells."

"So they can't do the same types of magic?"

"Oh no, they can more or less. All equally strong, just a few different spells. It was a bit weird, I didn't like it so much. I think it's probably good I didn't get the teaching job. Anyway, here's Albert, I stayed with him..."

* * *

><p>She's been told what to expect; wizard weddings, at least when Ministry officials are officiating, are short affairs. And they're keeping it shorter, with no bridesmaids or ushers, nor having their family members join them in the front of the proceedings. She almost wanted to invite her living aunts and uncles; Francis told her that it would be possible, but require some paperwork and an elaborate cover, and she's not close enough to any of them to invite them over. Francis invited a few friends, like Kenneth and Theresa and her family. But despite her telling him not to hold back out of respect for her, there aren't very many.<p>

She has a nice dress, not too over-the-top. Francis' suit would be quite smart even by Muggle standards; other than a penchant for robes, she hasn't noticed any such thing as "magical" clothing, which comforts her a bit. There's a tree outside in the Lupins' front lawn—_she's_ going to be a Lupin!—adorned with bells that ring themselves as she and Francis walk down the makeshift aisle assembled between two masses of guests, side by side.

The bells fall silent as they reach the front.

"We are gathered here today," says the wizard, "to celebrate the union of two faithful souls, a bonding deep and most proper. If any soul here can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, I bid you now speak or hereafter keep silent."

A moment. Another moment out of her life, spent there on the precipice. Silence.

"I bid you both speak, if you know of any impediment, that you may not be joined in matrimony. For be you well assured, that when the belt of truth does not join you together, neither shall our magic nor law bind you."

He would do magic, she knew, at the end of the ceremony, but not _to_ them; "It's just one of those signs, the tradition to mark that we're married. It doesn't do anything."

"Do you, Francis John, take Susan Elizabeth to be your wife, to live together in matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health? And pledge yourself only unto her?"

"I do."

"Do you, Susan Elizabeth, take Francis John to be your husband, to live together in matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health? And pledge yourself only unto him?"

"I do."

Francis takes Susan's right hand in his. "I, Francis John, take you Susan Elizabeth to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love and to cherish."

She takes his left hand in hers. "I, Susan Elizabeth, take you Francis John to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love and to cherish."

"Then I declare you bonded."

It sounds like an explosion, the stars booming into existence above them, and falling through the infinity sign formed by their arms. Then the bells start up again, jubilant, and the guests rise, pushing their chairs to one side.

The bells are playing one of Francis' favorite songs, some Vaughan Williams arrangement. They don't really sound like bells anymore, more like an organ or something, but she supposes that changing their timbre song to song is the least one can expect from _magic _bells. Mrs. Lupin pulled her aside two days before and asked if she would help suggest a few favorite songs; having seen wizards much more infatuated by music than she was, she did not list many, but couldn't resist throwing in a few.

For a while they are gloriously lost in each others' feet; after a while she notices that others are joining them. Since the vast majority of the crowd are relatives, it's either aunts and uncles dancing with each other, or gleeful young cousins traipsing around with Theresa and Bernard's children.

"I say," he pipes up, "I don't know this one. Is it one of your favorites?"

"Er, more or less," Susan grins as "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" peals out.

There's a pile of gifts; more cheese and other foods from Kenneth, tickets to Portree-Ballycastle from Theresa (who is rather indignant that Susan has never been to a Quidditch match), even (how did they know?) a record player from the relatives on Francis' mother's side. From Francis' parents, there's a bunch of assorted desserts "Since you're not going on a honeymoon," Mrs. Lupin explains, "we thought you ought to have something sweet to last for a long time."

"Only makes sense," says Francis. "Wouldn't want the sweetness in our marriage to last just the month."

"It's a new moon," asks one of the cousins. "That mean anything significant?"

He laughs. "I'm an astronomer, not a Seer. No."

"Wait, you aren't going on a honeymoon?" asks Bernard.

"Francis just got back from America, we even met there. Maybe we'll take a trip through Europe sometime, but not right now."

"You met in _America_?" says another cousin. "Wait, Susan, are you British?"

She laughs. "Yes. It's a long story."

"Pretty boring, though," says Francis, "you don't want to hear it all."

"...Hey!"

They cut a cake, and a couple model birds fly off it. It's quite rich, Francis not having had a hand in it, and Susan is slow to return to the dance floor. But eventually she returns, in time for "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen," which several of Francis' rather intoxicated uncles believe is about a magical species of flying horses. She doesn't fancy herself a good dancer and does not particularly care to make a habit of it, yet tonight she feels like she's doing a splendid job of it. Francis feels the same way.

Theresa and her family are among the first to take off, followed by some others with young children, despite Mr. and Mrs. Lupin inviting any relatives who wish to stay the night. Kenneth and Francis get to talking about his American expedition, while Susan works again on learning her new relatives' names.

"Alyssum?" she ventures.

The woman giggles. "No, dearie, I'm Mabel. Alyssum is on the Turpin side."

"Oh. Sorry." Turpin and Lupin? Good grief.

"No harm done, none at all. And you were a Peverell?"

"Pevensie."

"Ooh." Susan just hopes she doesn't ask about _her_ parents. "Very good. Well, congratulations once more. Such a happy day."

And it is. There's a lot to look forward to yet, but that doesn't change that, like they'd said all along, her wedding day _is_ really quite brilliant.

"You two get along..." Mrs. Lupin hesitates to call the Blackfriars flat "home." "Back where you're going, _you_ don't have to stay here."

"Er..." Susan and Francis say, looking at each other, "that's..."

"...quite all right. We'll stay."

"No," says Mr. Lupin pointedly, "we'd like it quiet for the babies, thanks."

"Quiet?" Francis echoes.

"Oh," says Susan. "Francis, you were planning to stay in your old room, weren't you? Go on and do that, I'll find another guest room. I'm a heavy sleeper, don't worry."

And, Francis slightly confused, his parents nervous, and Susan still exuberant, the day ends.

* * *

><p>She wakes up and heads for her closet.<p>

"I say, watch where you're going or you'll crash into that wardrobe. Wouldn't want that."

Then she whirls around. This is not her flat, it's a...Lupin. This is the Lupins' house. _My in-laws._

_I got married yesterday._

_Now what's that talking to me?_

"Hello?"

"Yes, good morning, Mrs. Bride," says her reflection in a mirror.

"Oh! Uh, hello there." Sheepishly changing, Susan heads down to the other breakfast. She expects an anticlimax of a meal after the previous day, but there are still a lot of relatives to feed, and the wait for cinnamon rolls is well worth it.

Francis sleeps in, not slipping down until she's almost done (but Amos and Perseus are still packing the rolls away). She practices on the names again, this time correctly identifying cousin Athena, until they are ready to head to Blackfriars.

"Now remember, you have to carry her across the threshold," teases Ezekiel, "and seeing as how you're doing Side-Along Apparition anyway—"

"I thought we'd just go straight to the room," Francis rebuts. "We live on the third floor!"

"And it's a good thing we didn't go any higher," Susan mutters.

"Come on, then," says Francis, slipping his arm through hers. There's a loud _crack_, that horrid squeeze, but then they are standing in the flat.

They've brought the foods back first, to put them in the refrigerator. "I'll go back for the others," says Francis, "you don't need to go through that."

"Oh no, it's quite all right. I'm just worried at what the neighbors will hear."

"I've Charmed the walls so they won't hear." Susan raises her eyebrows. "What? Some people have season tickets for the Underground. Some people need car parks for their cars. I take care of my transportation how I need to."

"If you're sure. Anyway, I'll come back, it'll go faster."

They bring the gifts over in pairs, saving the record player for last.

"This has been great, erm, Millie. John." They laughed at "Mr. and Mrs. Lupin"; Susan almost suspects Millie wants her to call her Mum or something but there's no chance of that.

"Come back soon," says Millie. "You're always welcome here, now."

"Thank you."

"Okay," says Francis, "you've got my hand—good—there!"

This time hurts more than the others, maybe because she somehow has to be carrying half the thing too, and she feels faint when they arrive. "You all there?" he says nervously as soon as they've set it down. "Should've made them lug the thing themselves." He glances her over, not quite the way she thinks a husband ought to look at his wife, but with evident emotion nonetheless.

"I'm fine," she says.

He shakes his head. "Shouldn't have dragged you _and_ the thing through. No matter now, you look well, and I'm sure Mum'll be along with any body parts you left behind. Now, what _is_ this thing?"

"What?"

"This. It looks like a Muggle contraption, it's got plugs for electricity and all. But what does it do?"

Susan laughs. "It plays music."

"What, like a wireless?"

"Sort of. It takes, erm," not "things like the thing I gave you and you did not know what to do with," "special contraptions and plays all the songs in a row. So you know what you're getting."

"All the songs in a row?"

"When bands, Muggle bands anyway, come out with...albums. They record many songs at a time, and then put them on what's called an album. Then, when you put an album on this, and set it up right, it'll play a bunch of songs for you. Ten or fifteen."

Francis beams. "Brilliant!"

She _thinks_ she's got it all plugged in right, but she can't tell for certain until they actually get a record. "I say, Francis, do you still have the Christmas present I got for you...is it two years ago, now?"

"Which one? Er, not the tickets, better be the...yes, yes, I have it." It's tucked inside a drawer in his desk; he was going to wait and see how often she came in before deciding whether to hang it in the window.

"Right," she says when he brings it out. "I _think_ this'll work..."

He is too pleased with the sound that streams out to feel awkward about not having done anything appropriate with her gift the first time.

They go to a Muggle library and check out a bunch of albums to listen through. "I'll buy us a copy of our favorites for a Christmas present to us," says Susan.

"Oh. That's nice."

But he isn't as excited about the music as normal. "Is that okay? Do wizards have some other tradition for Christmas?"

"No, no. It's just—is it that we're grown up now, are we not allowed to have any surprise gifts?"

She laughs. "Are you more worried about what you're going to get or give as a surprise?"

"Well, it depends! I don't know, is there some Muggle tradition I don't know about?"

"It's fine. We just don't have to pretend Santa Claus is coming when it's just the two of us. And I don't want to get you an album you don't like."

He rolls his eyes. "How was I to know what to do with yours?"

"You might have asked a Muggle friend."

"And show _him_ I was clueless?"

"He had to find out sometime," she teases, and he just smiles along.

Francis decides that he quite likes the new "rock and roll." Susan is less certain. "_You_ might want to rock at one, two, or three o'clock in the morning, but I'd quite like to get some sleep."

"I've Charmed the walls, haven't I?"

They eat dinner—not with the honey yet, life is for all their barbs still too sweet to alter. They try another album, and the evening proves just as conductive to rocking as the early afternoon had. They play cards, but restlessly.

They look at their bedroom. Both of them had tried out the bed, although not at the same time, and agreed that a nice firm mattress was just the thing. "Is there anything magic in here?" she asks. Beyond the bed, they mostly brought their own furniture.

"No, I got Muggle furniture when I lived on my own."

She looks at the mirror; her reflection is excited but simply a reflection, simply copying her. "There was a talking mirror in your parents' house."

"Oh. Yes. There're several. It's the _mirror_ talking, not you, it doesn't say anything about your true self or anything like that."

"That's good." But she still feels like she's being watched.

She showers. Then he does. "You're lucky you met me when you did. A few years earlier and I'd have taken much more time and used up all the hot water. Then again, maybe we'd never have met."

He does not seem too perturbed by her venture into the hypothetical. "Use up all the hot water, eh? I'm a wizard, remember."

"You take your wand with you in the shower?"

"Nah, just tap the pipes before we go in."

"Is this going to show up on our bill?"

"I'm not sure what to compare it to."

"There is that."

"Er. Good night, then. I love you."

"I love you too. Were we going to bed right away?"

"Ah, I was. Unless..."

"No, that's all right. Unless..."

He shrugs. "Might as well."

"I suppose. Have you got...protection? Against diseases, at least among Muggles there's a chance of disease."

"Us too. But I haven't got any."

"Me neither. But just in case."

"I, er, there's a charm I learned."

"Oh?"

"Yes, I'd just, er, charm myself, and that should be enough."

"_Should_ be?"

"What, have _you_ got some better system?"

"I think so. Somewhere. For myself, that is, anyway."

"Well, might as well both try, can't hurt."

"Suppose not."

They reconvene three minutes later.

"Right, then."

* * *

><p>"Good morning."<p>

Her eyes are still comfortably closed. "Mm?"

"Su? Hello. Good morning."

"Oh. Hi."

She rolls over. Francis is there, bleary-eyed but pleasant. He raises his eyebrows, which is a little painful when your eyes are still barely open. "We—did it all right, didn't we?"

"I don't suppose there's much of a wrong way."

"No, I suppose not."

They are married. They can have breakfast together, like this, every morning. She can cook for him. She can snicker as he guiltily volunteers to cook breakfast himself some time. She can shrug it off. She can assign some alternate chore she's really not keen on. She can, curious, go on and let him and see how it goes. They have _time_. They will have other days together. They can do it all.

He can try making toast. He can try making eggs. This fails the first seven times he tries it. On the eighth, he arguably succeeds, although this might have something to do with the fact that Susan, in a rush, has already left for work and he is left to eat them himself. Compared to Susan's, to be sure, they are not great, but by his own standards they are decent. He can try his mother's recipe for cinnamon rolls. He can Apparate back to her house (he is a wizard, after all), where she smiles broadly and thinks that that Susan is such a good influence on him. She is spared their eventual taste, but then again she misses out on the Saturday morning full of a warm smell filling and almost overwhelming the flat, Francis nibbling on the leftover dough, Susan flicking cinnamon at him.

Susan does not want surprises. She gives him the CDs for Christmas. He gives her his pledge to not rock around the clock, unless he's in America again and can exploit the time difference. He also gives her a deck of self-shuffling Tarot cards. "Not to predict the future, I mean, but to play games with."

He tries to teach her how to play, but unlike the games where they both brought their own set of rules and met in the middle, this time she remains unable to catch on even when there should be no confusion. They wind up pulling cards and making up stories about how the Queen of Wands has to track down the eighteenth Trump.

He invites her to come to the Speakable with him at the dawn of each new week, and again on Christmas Eve. She declines every time. He goes by himself. He invites her to come to his family's Christmas party. She has been planning on it.

Priscilla is pregnant again. "Good grief," says Ezekiel. "At this rate we'll go broke giving gifts to each other." The cousins start discussing ways to rig up a system where they'll draw names to only give gifts to one relative or another, but then that'll leave out the Lupin side and all the other in-laws. Susan feels a pang of...

a pang of _pang_, that's the only way to put it, because she certainly hadn't been _happy_ that she doesn't have to worry about this problem with her family. But she had realized that one might be happy for such a situation and that in itself is enough to overwhelm her.

The Turpin uncles, though relatively sober, have gotten a head start on "God Rest Ye, Merrye Hippogriffs;" "The wizards at those tidings rejoicèd much in mind, and left their flocks a-feeding in tempest, storm and wind, which the abandoned hippogriffs did not think very kind, oh tidings of ribbons and of bows." They pronounce "bows" as if someone were bowing, although what that has to do with winged horses Susan is still unclear.

Little Flora, for her part, is attempting to recall her favored version of "We The Wise," which apparently has two more verses than the number of people gathered to sing it. Francis is in high spirits; his love for music is genuine, but once in a while Susan wishes he'd discriminate just a tad.

Or maybe not. They'll gain nothing from two of them sulking, so she tries to stay out of his way, poking around the house to see if there are any magical knickknacks to marvel at. He hunts her down, later, but she plays dumb. "We have the whole year to each other. You can spend time with your family once in a while."

_It's your family too_, he wants to say, but simply pushes the hair out of her face. "You're part of my family."

Ten minutes later they've Apparated back to the flat, which still makes her a little uncomfortable. "How come you didn't just get to America that way? Save on airfare." Now that they are married they can retroactively criticize each other's financial decisions.

"You can only Apparate to a place you know pretty well, you need to form a clear image of it. And it gets harder the farther you go, intercontinental is almost unheard of."

"Oh." For some reason this pleases her, the idea that wizards are limited by geography too.

They sleep, together, and sometimes they sleep together. One of these years, they promise each other, they won't use so many charms and try for a child. Francis promises that some of his relatives know fertility charms that'll work on Muggles too, Susan thinks that probably won't be necessary but they can cross those bridges when they come to them. For now there are routines to settle into. Sort of.

Susan works at the university, still, and Francis does what passes for work from the flat more often than not. It's small, but then he doesn't have to hide his books anymore. Or so he thinks. Susan still has _some _work friends she'd like to have over once in a while, so he charms them once again.

He stays hidden away while she goes out into the world, and there's still plenty they can't completely understand about each other. But then again, there are things they can't completely understand about themselves, replaced by a new sort of knowledge that grows between them. Amid the owl cage, the books, the Tarot cards, and the music, in the chance of new life on its way, a tiny world has been created.


End file.
